ANGER RECOGNITION IS INDEPENDENT OF SPATIAL ATTENTION

If a facial expression of emotion is preattentively recognized it shou ld be recognized independently of the direction of attention. In the p resent experiment an outline face was located each side of a fixation point. Either both faces were coloured gray or one was coloured gray a nd one blue, and either both had a neutral expression or one had a neu tral expression and one an angry expression. RT to the presence of a b lue face in a display was slower when the blue face was neutral and th e gray face was angry than when both blue and gray faces were neutral. The irrelevant angry expression captured attention, indicating preatt entive processing. There were no effects in a condition in which a hap py face was substituted for the angry one.