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Department of Psychology

Staff

Publication details for Dr Anthony Atkinson

Tipples, J., Atkinson, A. P. & Young, A. W. (2002). The eyebrow frown: a salient social signal. Emotion 2(3): 288-296.

Author(s) from Durham

Abstract

Seven experiments investigated the finding that threatening schematic faces are detected more quickly than nonthreatening faces. Threatening faces with ∨-shaped eyebrows (angry and scheming expressions) were detected more quickly than nonthreatening faces with ∧-shaped eyebrows (happy and sad expressions). In contrast to the hypothesis that these effects were due to perceptual features unrelated to the face, no advantage was found for ∨-shaped eyebrows presented in a nonfacelike object. Furthermore, the addition of internal facial features (the eyes, or the nose and mouth) was necessary to produce the detection advantage for faces with ∨-shaped eyebrows. Overall, the results are interpreted as showing that the ∨-shaped eyebrow configuration affords easy detection, but only when other internal facial features are present.