Focusing on fear: attentional disengagement from emotional faces

Georgiou, George; Bleakley, Cheryl; Hayward, James; Russo, Riccardo; Dutton, Kevin; Eltiti, Stacy; Fox, Elaine

doi:10.1080/13506280444000076

Cited by 203Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesFace Recognition and PerceptionNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

Focusing on fear: attentional disengagement from emotional faces

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Georgiou, George, Bleakley, Cheryl, Hayward, James, Russo, Riccardo, Dutton, Kevin, Eltiti, Stacy, Fox, Elaine·2005·Visual Cognition

DOI 10.1080/13506280444000076PMC PMC1855164

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Abstract

Evidence suggests that anxiety is associated with a shift of visual attention toward threatening stimuli in the environment, such as facial expressions (Mogg & Bradley, 1999). More recent evidence, however, indicates that anxiety may be better characterized by a failure to rapidly disengage the visual attention system away from threat-related facial expressions (Fox, Russo, Bowles, & Dutton, 2001). The present study further investigates this delayed disengagement hypothesis. Results show that high trait-anxious individuals, in contrast to low trait-anxious individuals, take longer to classify peripheral target letters when fearful facial expressions were presented at fixation relative to sad, happy, or neutral expressions. These findings demonstrate a specific tendency to dwell on fear-relevant stimuli, as opposed to negative information in general. These findings are considered from an evolutionary perspective and the possible role of delayed disengagement from threat in the maintenance of anxiety states is also discussed.

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Subsequent studies have provided support for the disengagement account of anxious attentional bias.
“A number of studies have since supported this hypothesis (Amir, Elias, Klumpp, & Przeworski, 2003; Fox, Russo, & Dutton, 2002; Georgiou et al., 2005).”
From Attentional bias and emotional reactivity as predictors and moderators of behavioral treatment for social phobia (2013) · cites this paper as Georgiou et al., 2005
This result is at odds with prior research using the spatial cueing paradigm with high trait-anxious individuals.
“This result is at odds with prior research using the spatial cueing paradigm with high trait-anxious individuals (Fox et al., 2001; Georgiou et al., 2005).”
From Attentional bias and emotional reactivity as predictors and moderators of behavioral treatment for social phobia (2013) · cites this paper as Georgiou et al., 2005

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Decoupling attentional capture and disengagement in attention bias towards threat: An eye-tracking studyPreprint
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Authors: Georgiou, G., Bleakley, C., Hayward, J., Russo, R., Dutton, K., Eltiti, S., & Fox, E.
Affiliations: University of Essex (GB)
ORCID: Russo, Riccardo
Eltiti, Stacy
Fox, Elaine
Venue: Visual Cognition
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Published: 2005-01
Volume: 12
Issue: 1
Pages: 145-158
ISSN: 1350-6285 (ISSN-L)
1464-0716
DOI: 10.1080/13506280444000076
PMC: PMC1855164
OpenAlex: W1988245966
Cited by: 203
References: 29
Citations by year: 2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 13
FWCI: 15.12
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: green
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Locations: Visual Cognition (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Open Access at Essex (University of Essex) (acceptedVersion)
Funders: Wellcome Trust (064290)
Topics: Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Keywords: attentional disengagement, trait anxiety, emotional facial expressions, fearful faces, threat processing, visual attention, evolutionary psychology, anxiety maintenance

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Focusing on fear: attentional disengagement from emotional faces

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