Visual Features Drive Attentional Bias for Threat

Past studies argued that the attentional capture by threats is hard to inhibit. When using threats as task-irrelevant stimuli, this effect can deteriorate performance on the primary task. Whether attentional capture is driven by affective information (threat) or visual features (shape) is still debated. Here we aimed to investigate the role of threat value and shape in modulating attentional resources by conducting two experiments (total N = 87). Participants engaged in a semantic vigilance task responding to masked words appearing at the centre of the screen while ignoring threat-relevant (threatening or visually similar but nonthreatening) and neutral control distractor images placed at different distances from the target word. We found no performance difference between participants exposed to threat-related stimuli via affective or shape features. Moreover, while performance decreased when a neutral distractor appeared close (compared to further away) to the target word, stimulus eccentricity had no effect when the distractor (irrespective of the conveying feature) was threat relevant. Our findings are in line with previous studies showing an initial capture of attention by threat-relevant information but that this negative effect is compensated by an increase in arousal. We conclude that even the visual features of a stimulus can modulate attention toward threats.