2019 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Comparing emotional attention in humans and chimpanzees: Is the touchscreen dot probe task an effective tool?
| Project/Area Number |
19K21003
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Research Institution | Kyoto University |
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Principal Investigator |
WILSON DUNCAN 京都大学, 霊長類研究所, 非常勤研究員 (20828925)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2020-03-31
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| Keywords | Chimpanzees / Humans / Evolution / Attentional bias / Facial expression / Threat / Dot probe task / Visual search task |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
I completed the human dot probe task experiment and compared the data with chimpanzees. I also completed a second study on visual search in chimpanzees. The dot probe task compared attentional orientation towards emotional faces in chimpanzees and humans. Both species showed no attentional bias towards threatening versus neutral faces. This suggested that the task was not so effective at measuring emotional attention. However, a visual search task provided the first demonstration of an attentional bias towards threatening faces in chimpanzees, with more efficient search for threatening than neutral face targets. This was due to greater difficulty in disengaging attention from threatening face distractors, consistent with human research. The visual search task appeared to be more effective at measuring emotional attention. Together, the tasks revealed that chimpanzees give attentional priority to threatening faces at a relatively later stage of cognitive processing. This suggests a bias towards threatening faces is a shared characteristic, which can be traced back to at least the last common ancestor between Old World monkeys and apes. I presented the results of my dot probe study at three international conferences and visual search study at one invited lecture. In addition, I have completed a second manuscript based on my visual search study entitled ‘Search asymmetries for threatening faces in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)’.
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