Non-threatening other-race faces capture visual attention: evidence from a dot-probe task.
Visual attentional biases towards other-race faces have been attributed to the perceived threat value of such faces. It is possible, however, that they reflect the relative visual novelty of other-race faces. Here we demonstrate an attentional bias to other-race faces in the absence of perceived threat. White participants rated female East Asian faces as no more threatening than female own-race faces. Nevertheless, using a new dot-probe paradigm that can distinguish attentional capture and hold effects, we found that these other-race faces selectively captured visual attention. Importantly, this demonstration challenges previous interpretations of attentional biases to other-race faces as threat responses. Future studies will need to determine whether perceived threat increases attentional biases to other-race faces, beyond the levels seen here.
ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. shahd.al-janabi@mq.edu.au
Shahd
S
Al-Janabi
Colin
C
MacLeod
Gillian
G
Rhodes
D000293:Adolescent; D044466:Asian People; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D044383:Black People; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D044465:White People; D055815:Young Adult