scholarly journals The Crowd-Emotion-Amplification Effect

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amit Goldenberg ◽  
Erika Weisz ◽  
Timothy D. Sweeny ◽  
Mina Cikara ◽  
James J. Gross
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Attentional Bias ◽  
Exposure Time ◽  
Emotional Response ◽  
Public Speaking ◽  
Effect Study ◽  
Time Study ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Amplification Effect ◽  
Crowd Emotion

How do people go about reading a room or taking the temperature of a crowd? When people catch a brief glimpse of an array of faces, they can focus their attention on only some of the faces. We propose that perceivers preferentially attend to faces exhibiting strong emotions and that this generates a crowd-emotion-amplification effect—estimating a crowd’s average emotional response as more extreme than it actually is. Study 1 ( N = 50) documented the crowd-emotion-amplification effect. Study 2 ( N = 50) replicated the effect even when we increased exposure time. Study 3 ( N = 50) used eye tracking to show that attentional bias to emotional faces drives amplification. These findings have important implications for many domains in which individuals must make snap judgments regarding a crowd’s emotionality, from public speaking to controlling crowds.

scholarly journals The Crowd Emotion Amplification Effect

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amit Goldenberg ◽  
Erika Weisz ◽  
Timothy Sweeny ◽  
Mina Cikara ◽  
James Gross
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Attentional Bias ◽  
Exposure Time ◽  
Emotional Response ◽  
Public Speaking ◽  
Effect Study ◽  
Time Study ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Amplification Effect ◽  
Crowd Emotion

How do people go about reading a room or taking the temperature of a crowd? When people catch a brief glimpse of an array of faces, they can only focus their attention on some of the faces. We propose that perceivers preferentially attend to faces exhibiting strong emotions, and that this generates a crowd emotion amplification effect—estimating a crowd’s average emotional response as more extreme than it is. Study 1 (N = 50) documents the crowd amplification effect. Study 2 (N = 50) replicates the effect even when we increase exposure time. Study 3 (N = 50) uses eye-tracking to show that attentional bias to emotional faces drives amplification. These findings have important implications for many domains in which individuals have to make snap judgments regarding a crowd’s emotionality, from public speaking to controlling crowds.

scholarly journals Attentional processing of pain faces and other emotional faces in chronic pain–an eye-tracking study

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0252398
Author(s):  
Janosch A. Priebe ◽  
Claudia Horn-Hofmann ◽  
Daniel Wolf ◽  
Stefanie Wolff ◽  
Michael Heesen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Pain ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Attentional Bias ◽  
Fixation Duration ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Fixation Durations ◽  
Neutral Face ◽  
Fixation Probabilities

Altered attentional processing of pain-associated stimuli–which might take the form of either avoidance or enhanced vigilance–is thought to be implicated in the development and maintenance of chronic pain. In contrast to reaction time tasks like the dot probe, eye tracking allows for tracking the time course of visual attention and thus differentiating early and late attentional processes. Our study aimed at investigating visual attention to emotional faces in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain (N = 20) and matched pain-free controls (N = 20). Emotional faces (pain, angry, happy) were presented in pairs with a neutral face for 2000 ms each. Three parameters were determined: First fixation probabilities, fixation durations (overall and divided in four 500 ms intervals) and a fixation bias score as the relative fixation duration of emotional faces compared to neutral faces. There were no group differences in any of the parameters. First fixation probabilities were lower for pain faces than for angry faces. Overall, we found longer fixation duration on emotional compared to neutral faces (‘emotionality bias’), which is in accord with previous research. However, significant longer fixation duration compared to the neutral face was detected only for happy and angry but not for pain faces. In addition, fixation durations as well as bias scores yielded evidence for vigilant-avoidant processing of pain faces in both groups. These results suggest that attentional bias towards pain-associated stimuli might not generally differentiate between healthy individuals and chronic pain patients. Exaggerated attentional bias in patients might occur only under specific circumstances, e.g., towards stimulus material specifically relating to the specific pain of the patients under study or under high emotional distress.

Attentional Bias to Untrustworthy Faces: Evidence From Eye Tracking Data

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (9) ◽  
pp. 1508
Author(s):  
Qiandong WANG ◽  
Qinggong LI ◽  
Kaikai CHEN ◽  
Genyue FU
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Attentional Bias ◽  
Tracking Data

Relationships between attention to emotion and anxiety among a community sample of adolescents

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Benjamin C. Mullin ◽  
Jacob B. W. Holzman ◽  
Laura Pyle ◽  
Emmaly L. Perks ◽  
Yaswanth Chintaluru ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Attentional Bias ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Small Samples ◽  
Control Analysis ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Anxious Youth ◽  
Case Control Analysis

Abstract Background Attentional bias to threat has been implicated as a cognitive mechanism in anxiety disorders for youth. Yet, prior studies documenting this bias have largely relied on a method with questionable reliability (i.e. dot-probe task) and small samples, few of which included adolescents. The current study sought to address such limitations by examining relations between anxiety – both clinically diagnosed and dimensionally rated – and attentional bias to threat. Methods The study included a community sample of adolescents and employed eye-tracking methodology intended to capture possible biases across the full range of both automatic (i.e. vigilance bias) and controlled attentional processes (i.e. avoidance bias, maintenance bias). We examined both dimensional anxiety (across the full sample; n = 215) and categorical anxiety in a subset case-control analysis (n = 100) as predictors of biases. Results Findings indicated that participants with an anxiety disorder oriented more slowly to angry faces than matched controls. Results did not suggest a greater likelihood of initial orienting to angry faces among our participants with anxiety disorders or those with higher dimensional ratings of anxiety. Greater anxiety severity was associated with greater dwell time to neutral faces. Conclusions This is the largest study to date examining eye-tracking metrics of attention to threat among healthy and anxious youth. Findings did not support the notion that anxiety is characterized by heightened vigilance or avoidance/maintenance of attention to threat. All effects detected were extremely small. Links between attention to threat and anxiety among adolescents may be subtle and highly dependent on experimental task dimensions.

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