title: When do fearful faces override inhibition of return?
abstract: Inhibition of return (IOR) occurs when more than about 300 ms elapses between the cue and the target in atypical peripheral cueing task: reaction times (RTs) become longer when the cue and target locations are the same versus different. IOR could serve the adaptive role of optimizing visual search by discouraging the re-inspection of previously attended locations. As such, IOR should not reduce our chances of noticing relevant event information and emotional stimuli, in particular. However, previous studies have led to inconsistent results. The present study offers a systematic investigation of the conditions under which target fearful faces can modulate either the magnitude or the time course of the IOR effect. Notably, we manipulated the depth of facial processing required to perform the task and/or the task relevance of the facial expressions. When participants localized target faces (Experiment 1) or discriminated them from non-face stimuli (Experiment 2), their emotional expression had no impact on IOR whatsoever. However, IOR occurred later for fearful versus neutral faces when the participants performed emotion (Experiment 3) or gender (Experiment 4) discrimination tasks. These findings are discussed with regard to the mechanisms responsible for IOR and to the processing of emotional facial expressions.
authors.affiliation: Clermont Université, Université Blaise Pascal, Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive, BP 10448, F-63000 Clermont-Ferrand, France; CNRS, UMR 6024, LAPSCO, F-63037 Clermont-Ferrand, France. Electronic address: laetitia.silvert@univ-bpclermont.fr.
authors.forename: Laetitia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Silvert
authors.affiliation: Mind Brain and Behaviour Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: María J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Funes
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention; Emotion; Fearful faces; Inhibition of return; Visual orienting