TY - JOUR
T1 - Non-threatening other-race faces capture visual attention
T2 - evidence from a dot-probe task
AU - Al-Janabi, Shahd
AU - MacLeod, Colin
AU - Rhodes, Gillian
N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2012. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2012/10/3
Y1 - 2012/10/3
N2 - Visual attentional biases towards other-race faces have been attributed to the perceived threat value of such faces. It is possible, however, that they reflect the relative visual novelty of other-race faces. Here we demonstrate an attentional bias to other-race faces in the absence of perceived threat. White participants rated female East Asian faces as no more threatening than female own-race faces. Nevertheless, using a new dot-probe paradigm that can distinguish attentional capture and hold effects, we found that these other-race faces selectively captured visual attention. Importantly, this demonstration challenges previous interpretations of attentional biases to other-race faces as threat responses. Future studies will need to determine whether perceived threat increases attentional biases to other-race faces, beyond the levels seen here.
AB - Visual attentional biases towards other-race faces have been attributed to the perceived threat value of such faces. It is possible, however, that they reflect the relative visual novelty of other-race faces. Here we demonstrate an attentional bias to other-race faces in the absence of perceived threat. White participants rated female East Asian faces as no more threatening than female own-race faces. Nevertheless, using a new dot-probe paradigm that can distinguish attentional capture and hold effects, we found that these other-race faces selectively captured visual attention. Importantly, this demonstration challenges previous interpretations of attentional biases to other-race faces as threat responses. Future studies will need to determine whether perceived threat increases attentional biases to other-race faces, beyond the levels seen here.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84867036467&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0046119
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0046119
M3 - Article
C2 - 23056245
AN - SCOPUS:84867036467
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 7
SP - 1
EP - 7
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 10
M1 - e46119
ER -