The face in the crowd effect: Threat-detection advantage with perceptually intermediate distractors

The ability to quickly perceive threatening facial expressions allows one to detect emotional states and respond appropriately. The anger superiority hypothesis predicts that angry faces capture attention faster than happy faces. Previous studies have used photographic (Hansen & Hansen, 1988) and schematic face images (e.g., Eastwood, Smilek, & Merikle, 2001; Ohman, Lunqvist, & Esteves, 2001) in studying the anger superiority effect, but …