Angry faces may capture attention but do they hold it?

The Anger Superiority Effect refers to an individual’s tendency to avoid an angry face after locating it in a crowd situation. Previous literature has used different methodologies, consisting of cartoon like facial images [9] and real life photographs [20] to look at this effect. The aim of the current study was to also look at the Anger Superiority Effect but in a different way to the past research. Researchers aim to use the method of eye tracking [20] to try and provide a new line of evidence towards Anger Superiority. 20 participants (7 male and 13 female) from the area of Newcastle-upon-Tyne were asked to complete a simple emotive face memory task whilst having their eye movements tracked. Researchers wanted to find out if participants avoided angry faces after locating them, and also if there were any areas of the angry faces themselves that were of particular interest. Results demonstrated that participants did not avoid the angry face after focusing on it, contradicting the previous literature. It was also demonstrated that angry faces were fixated less quickly than other emotions, again not supporting past literature. All results were discussed in relation to the past Anger Superiority studies and improvements in relation to future research were suggested.