The face of wrath: Critical features for conveying facial threat

We examined the role of different facial features (shape of eyebrows, eyes, mouth, nose, and the direction of gaze) in conveying the emotional impact of a threatening face. In two experiments, a total of 100 high school stude nts rated their impression of two sets of schematic faces in terms of seman tic differential scales (Activity, Negative Evaluation, and Potency). It wa s found that the different facial features could be ordered hierarchically, with eyebrows as the most important feature, followed by mouth and eyes. E yebrows thus fundamentally categorised faces as threatening or nonthreateni ng. The different shapes of mouth and eyes provided subsequent categorisati ons of faces within these primary categories.