Angry faces do draw out attention more compared to happy faces

It has been suggested that angry faces capture our attention by showing faster reaction times (RTs) when the target is an angry face compared to a happy face in a visual search paradigm. However, this anger superiority account has been challenged by the low-level visual feature account: the contrast between face color and tooth color can parsimoniously explain faster RTs. Here, we further manipulated the face contrast (high, medium, low) and emotion (angry, happy, both teeth shown) to assess whether attention is modulated only by the low-level feature, or emotion can also affect attentional modulation. In Experiment 1, observers (n = 80) were asked to find an emotional face (angry or happy) among neutral faces in a visual search paradigm. RTs were faster when the target is an angry face compared to a happy face. Furthermore, RTs were modulated by the face contrast (RTs: high < medium < low). Critically, there was an interaction between face contrast and emotion suggesting that emotion also affected target processing during visual search. In Experiment 2, we used a cueing paradigm to further study whether angry faces draw more attention than happy faces. Observers (n = 60) were asked to find an odd-ball orientation among three vertical gratings. Before the search array appeared, a cue array (100 ms) comprising an emotional face (angry or happy) and three neutral faces was displayed. The cueing benefit—faster RT for valid (target is displayed at the emotional face location) compared to invalid trials—was only found when the cue array had the angry face. We also found the interaction between face color and emotion. Overall, while low-level visual features could explain some attentional benefit in these experimental paradigms, our results suggest that angry faces may draw our attention more compared to happy faces.