The effect of inducing panic search on the detection of fear-relevant and neutral images

Abstract

Panic search occurs when the presentation of a fearful facial expression precue, prior to a search display, improves target detection relative to when neutral and positive expressions are used. In the present study, fearful and neutral expressions acted as precues and targets were images of either neutral or threatening animals. It was predicted that detection of a threatening image following a fearful precue would be particularly facilitated. In a first experiment, target detection was better when targets were threatening than neutral, but the predicted cue enhancement did not occur. In a second experiment, when cue type was blocked, participants were particularly facilitated in responding to threatening targets following fearful precues. It is concluded that consistent and repeated exposure to threatening facial expression results in a generalized increase in processing efficiency and that such a state induces a particular facilitation in responding in the presence of threatening targets.

Keywords:

• Facial precues
• Speeded visual search
• Threat detection

Notes

¹To be clear, whereas participants were explicitly instructed in Becker's study to search for an image of a house, the present task was configured as an oddball task. Participants here were told to decide, essentially, if only pictures of birds were present in a given display. Over trials though, participants may have implicitly decided to search for the presence of a distinctive mammal as “mammal” was the underlying target category. There is no reason to suppose that these task instructions would materially affect performance in such a way as to compromise the rationale of the study.

²Although Becker (2009, p. 435) commented that the order of blocks was counterbalanced over participants, this fits uncomfortably with the number of blocks (3) and the number of participants (19).

³Changes in slope were found in Experiment 2 (on absent trials) but these seemed to reflect more general changes in search efficiency with practice than with anything specifically related to the effects of the different cues.