ArticleScientific reports2023
Prioritization of emotional faces is not driven by emotional content.
Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mask contrast and size do not alter suppression depth in the tracking continuous flash suppression paradigm.Journal of vision · 2026Article
- Breakthrough thresholds in continuous flash suppression are tuned to mask temporal frequency but suppression depth is constant.Journal of vision · 2025Article
- Local motion governs visibility and suppression of biological motion in continuous flash suppression.Journal of vision · 2025Article
- Self-relevant facial threat attracts peripheral attention.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Perceptual, Not Attentional, Guidance Drives Happy Superiority in Complex Visual Search.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Investigating electrophysiological correlates of nonconscious processing of facial expressions using dichoptic forward masking.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- Contingency learning of social cues: neural engagement and emotional modulation by facial expressions.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- A new 'CFS tracking' paradigm reveals uniform suppression depth regardless of target complexity or salience.eLife · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Emotional faces have prioritized access to visual awareness. However, studies concerned with what expressions are prioritized most are inconsistent and the source of prioritization remains elusive. Here we tested the predictive value of spatial frequency-based image-features and emotional content, the sub-part of the image content that signals the emotional expression of the actor in the image as opposed to the image content irrelevant for the emotional expression, for prioritization for awareness. Participants reported which of two faces (displaying a combination of angry, happy, and neutral expressions), that were temporarily suppressed from awareness, was perceived first. Even though the results show that happy expressions were prioritized for awareness, this prioritization was driven by the contrast energy of the images. In fact, emotional content could not predict prioritization at all. Our findings show that the source of prioritization for awareness is not the information carrying the emotional content. We argue that the methods used here, or similar approaches, should become standard practice to break the chain of inconsistent findings regarding emotional superiority effects that have been part of the field for decades.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.