Angry facial expressions elicit a late attentional withdrawal

Facial expressions of emotion are salient social cues that can trigger adaptive behavioral responses-such as facilitated approach or avoidance movements in response to positive or negative stimuli, respectively. We conducted a behavioral experiment testing the hypothesis that while both happy and angry faces initially capture attention, angry expressions subsequently prompt a withdrawal of attention-a pattern consistent with aversive behavioral tendencies. Using a target-detection paradigm, we varied the spatial location and timing (50 ms vs. 350 ms) of targets relative to face stimuli. Results supported the hypothesis: angry faces led to faster responses to targets appearing nearer to the observer (i.e., farther from the face) at 350 ms, suggesting attentional retraction. A follow-up fMRI experiment replicated this design with only the 350 ms delay. Behaviorally, responses were faster to targets near happy faces and away from angry ones. These effects correlated with subjective reports of being attracted or repelled by the expressions, as well as with individual differences in empathy and trait avoidance. Neuroimaging data revealed an interaction between emotion and target location in early visual cortices, modulated by subjective attraction-retraction ratings. These findings support the idea of attention disengaging from angry faces, with both behavioral and neural correlates linked to individual affective dispositions.