Many studies have shown that not only threatening but also positive stimuli capture visual attention. However, in the dot-probe task, a common paradigm to assess attention to emotional stimuli, usually no bias towards happy faces occurs. Here, we investigated whether such a bias can occur and, if so, under which conditions. In Experiment 1, we investigated whether the bias is contingent on the simultaneous presentation of distractor stimuli with the targets. Participants performed a dot-probe task with either stand-alone targets or targets that were accompanied by distractors. We found an attentional bias towards happy faces that was not moderated by target type. To rule out perceptual low-level confounds as the cause of the bias towards happy faces, Experiments 2a and 2b comprised dot-probe tasks with inverted face cues. No attentional bias towards inverted happy faces occurred. In Experiment 3, we investigated whether a bias towards happy faces is contingent on a social-processing mode. Participants performed a dot-probe task with socially meaningful (schematic faces) or socially meaningless (scrambled schematic faces) targets. Again, a bias towards happy faces, which was not moderated by target type, occurred. In Experiment 4, we investigated the attentional bias towards happy faces when another highly relevant expression was present. Participants performed a dot-probe task with both happy and angry face cues. A significant attentional bias towards emotional faces occurred that did not differ between both cue emotions. These results suggest that happy faces are sufficiently relevant for observers to capture attention in the dot-probe task.

中文翻译：

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它毕竟会发生：在点探针任务中对笑脸的注意力偏向。

许多研究表明，威胁和积极刺激不仅吸引视觉注意力。但是，在点探针任务中，一种用于评估对情绪刺激的注意力的常见范例通常不会出现对笑脸的偏见。在这里，我们调查了这种偏差是否会发生，以及是否会在哪种情况下发生。在实验1中，我们调查了偏倚是否取决于干扰物与目标同时出现。参与者使用独立目标或带有干扰物的目标来执行点探针任务。我们发现，对笑脸的注意力偏向没有根据目标类型来缓和。为了排除低水平的混淆是导致笑脸偏向的原因，实验2a和2b包含点探针任务和相反的面孔提示。没有出现对反向笑脸的注意偏见。在实验3中，我们调查了对笑脸的偏向是否取决于社交处理模式。参与者执行了具有社会意义（示意性面孔）或社会意义不大（混乱的示意图面孔）目标的点探针任务。再次出现了对笑脸的偏见，这种偏见并未根据目标类型来缓和。在实验4中，当存在另一个高度相关的表达时，我们调查了对笑脸的注意偏见。参与者用快乐和生气的表情执行了一个点探针任务。出现了对情绪面孔的明显注意偏见，两种提示情绪之间没有差异。这些结果表明，笑脸足以让观察者在点探针任务中引起注意。