Scary Faces Have Subliminal Effects, Study Finds

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Scary Faces Have Subliminal Effects, Study Finds

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Wed Dec 15, 4:40 PM ET Science - Reuters

 

 

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People's brains react to a photograph of a frightened

face, even when it is flashed on a screen too quickly to be consciously

recognized, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

 

 

 

The team at Columbia University in New York found responses in the amygdala,

the part of the brain associated with emotional responses, as well as the

attention and vision regions of the cerebral cortex.

 

 

" What we think we've identified is a circuit in the brain that's responsible

for enhancing the processing of unconsciously detected threats in anxious

people, " said Amit Etkin, who led the study.

 

 

" Our study shows that there's a very important role for unconscious emotions

in anxiety, " Etkin said.

 

 

Many studies have shown people register subliminal images -- those flashed

on a screen too quickly to be noticed consciously.

 

 

Writing in the journal Neuron, the researchers said they used

high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging, a way of scanning

brain activity in real time, on 17 undergraduate university students.

 

 

While the volunteers were looking at a computer, the researchers displayed a

fearful face on the monitor for 33 milliseconds, immediately followed by a

similar neutral face.

 

 

People all over the world respond similarly to a fearful expression, even a

photograph of one. In this case, the face appeared and disappeared so

quickly the volunteers could have had no conscious awareness of it.

 

 

The 17 volunteers had normal variations in anxiety.

 

 

But the more anxious a student was naturally, the more of a reaction was

seen in the brain to a frightened face, the researchers found.

 

 

When the students looked at the scared faces long enough for conscious

recognition, a different brain circuit was used. That activity did not vary

according to the underlying level of anxiety.

 

 

" Psychologists have suggested that people with anxiety disorders are very

sensitive to subliminal threats and are picking up stimuli the rest of us do

not perceive, " said Joy Hirsch, who worked on the study.

 

 

" Our findings now demonstrate a biological basis for that unconscious

emotional vigilance. "

 

 

It may be possible to use fMRI imaging to test new drugs to treat anxiety

and to check a patient's response to therapy or medications, Hirsch said.