Citation

Nicol JR, Perrotta S, Caliciuri S, Wachowiak MP. Cogn. Emot. 2013; 27(8): 1478-1485.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology , Nipissing University , North Bay , ON , Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/02699931.2013.793654

PMID

23705819

Abstract

Exposure to fearful facial expressions enhances vision at low spatial-frequencies and impairs vision at high spatial-frequencies. This perceptual trade-off is thought to be a consequence of a fear-related activation of the magnocellular visual pathway to the amygdala. In this study we examined the generality of the effect of emotion on low-level visual perception by assessing participants' orientation sensitivity to low and high spatial-frequency targets following exposure to disgust, fear, and neutral facial expressions. The results revealed that exposure to fear and disgust expressions have opposing effects on early vision: fearful expressions enhanced low spatial-frequency vision and impaired high spatial-frequency vision, while disgust expressions, like neutral expressions, impaired low spatial-frequency vision and enhanced high spatial-frequency vision. Thus we show the effect of exposure to fear on visual perception is not a general emotional effect, but rather one that may that depend on amygdala activation, or one that may be specific to fear.

Language: en