ATTENTIONAL BIASES FOR EMOTIONAL FACES

Two studies investigated emotion-related biases in selective attention for pictorial stimuli in nonclinical subjects; the stimuli included t hreatening, happy and neutral facial expressions. The combined results showed evidence of an emotion-related attentional bias for facial exp ressions (i.e. an interaction effect of dysphoria and the emotional va lence of the facial expression on attentional bias). In particular, no ndysphoric subjects (i.e. those with low levels of anxiety and depress ion) showed an attentional bias away from threatening facial expressio ns, relative to neutral expressions. The dysphoric subjects did not sh ow significant evidence of attentional biases for emotional stimuli.