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The influence of attention and anxiety on the neural response to facial signals of fear and aggression
Authors:
EWBANK, M.P., Lawrence, A.D., PASSAMONTI, L. KEANE, J. & Andrew J. Calder.
Reference:
Experiment Psychology Society Meeting, Cambridge, April 2008
Year of publication:
2008
CBU number:
6831
Abstract:
Fearful faces signal the presence of a significant, yet undetermined source of danger within the environment (Whalen, 1998). By contrast, angry facial expressions signal a qualitatively different, more direct form of threat, often used in face-to-face encounters to ward off challengers (Ohman, 1986). Individual differences in anxiety have been shown to modulate the amygdala response to unattended, but not attended fearful faces (Bishop, Duncan & Lawrence, 2004). Given the inherent difference between these two expressions, we hypothesised that, in contrast to fearful faces, angry faces would modulate the amygdala response when attended. To investigate this issue, we used fMRI to examine the effects of anxiety and attention on the response to angry and fearful faces. Participants with higher anxiety levels showed an increased right amygdala response to angry faces for the attended condition only. By contrast, fearful faces produced a greater left amygdala response when unattended. Our findings demonstrate dissociable effects of attention on the amygdala responses to facial signals of fear and aggression; furthermore these effects are only apparent when anxiety is taken into account. These findings support the theory that the amygdala is part of a neural system involved in the detection of danger.