Abstract
We examined the effects of negative (anger, sadness, and disgust) and positive (hap-
piness) stimuli on face recognition. We adopted the flicker paradigm composed of
change-detection (Experiment A) and memory (Experiment B) tasks. In the change-
detection task, each trial cycled through two displays separated by a blank display
until a response was made. The participants (n = 20) were asked to attend to and
detect the changed face. In the memory task, each trial cycled through the memory
and blank displays for 10s. In accordance with the flicker paradigm, the cueing stimulus
appeared in the location of a single test item for 1000 ms. The participants were asked
to memorize and later recall which faces were presented in the cued location. Negative
face advantage was observed in the change-detection task, whereas the positive face
advantage was observed in the memory task. These results suggest that the detection
process modulates the negative face advantage, while the memory process modulates
the positive face advantage.
