October 26, 2007
Humans Perceive Others’ Fear Faster than Other Emotions
[Vanderbilt University researchers have discovered that...]
[film still not with link]
The technique, continuous flash suppression, keeps people from becoming aware of what they are seeing for up to 10 seconds. Using this technique, the team had research subjects look at a screen through a viewer, similar to the eyepieces on a microscope, which allowed different images to be presented to each eye. Many images were rapidly presented to one eye while a static image of a face was presented to the other. The multiple images served as visual “noise,” suppressing the image of the face. The subjects indicated when they first became aware of seeing a face, enabling the researchers to determine if the expression on the face had any impact on how quickly the subject became aware of it.
The team found that subjects became aware of faces that had fearful expressions before neutral or happy faces.
Posted by Stubbornson at October 26, 2007 07:36 PM