title: Effects of facial expression on shared attention mechanisms.
abstract: We investigated the effects of facial expression on shared attention mechanisms. A female or male facial stimulus with one of 3 facial expressions (happiness, neutral, or anger) was presented at the center of a display. This facial stimulus gazed toward a subject, or toward the left or right side of the display. After the facial stimulus was offset, a target appeared on the left or right side of the display and the reaction time to the target was measured. In the statistical analysis by ANOVA, there was a significant main effect of congruity between the target position and the gaze direction in both the female and male facial cues, indicating that gaze direction significantly affected reaction time. When the female facial cues were presented, the reaction times for the congruent target position to the gaze direction were significantly shorter in the happy than other facial expressions. However, there were no significant differences in reaction time when the facial stimuli were presented in an inverted orientation. The results demonstrated that facial expression significantly affected shared attention mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: System Emotional Science, Graduate School of Medicine Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Sugitani 2630, Toyama 930-0194, Japan.
authors.forename: Etsuro
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hori
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tazumi
authors.forename: Katsumi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Umeno
authors.forename: Miyuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kamachi
authors.forename: Tsuneyuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Taketoshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ono
authors.forename: Hisao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nishijo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D009949:Orientation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time