The Priming Effect of a Facial Expression of Surprise on the Discrimination of a Facial Expression of Fear

The emotions of fear and surprise share different characteristics in terms of expressive and evaluative aspects. Certain authors therefore contend that they could be part of the same emotional category for responding quickly to sudden dangers. This research was designed to analyse the facilitatory role of the expression of surprise in the discrimination of the expression of fear, and the possible modulation of the visual context in this relationship. The study involved 40 emotional facial expressions (10 neutral ones, 10 of fear, 10 of surprise, and 10 of anger) taken from the NimStim Face Stimulus Set database (Tottenham et al. 2009), and 60 photographs (20 negative ones, 20 neutral ones, and 20 positive ones) taken from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Lang et al. 1999). In an initial experiment, a priming paradigm was used to establish two levels in the Prime variable (facial expression of surprise and a neutral one) and two levels in the Target variable (facial expression of fear and anger), maintaining a prime display time of 50 ms. The results revealed a facilitating effect of the surprise prime on the expression of fear, but not on that of anger. In a second experiment, using the same paradigm but with the variables Visual context (negative, neutral and positive) and Prime (facial expression of surprise and a neutral one), the facilitatory effect of surprise on the discrimination of fear was maintained only when the visual context was neutral. The discussion focuses on the relationship between surprise and fear, and the modulating role of the emotional visual context.