The impact of prior and ongoing threat on the false alarm threshold for facial discrimination

Perceptual adaptations facilitate rapid responses to threats but can come with the cost of false alarms, or the failure to discriminate safe or novel stimuli from signals of true threat. For example, a fatigued colleague might be avoided when their tired expression is interpreted as a scowl, or a glimpse at a stranger might cause a rush of anxiety if they resemble a known adversary. We examined false alarms in the context of facial cues, which can become exaggerated signals of threat across anxiety disorders. In Experiment 1, ongoing threat lowered the false alarm threshold for discrimination based on anger intensity compared to prior and no threat. In Experiment 2, prior and ongoing threat each lowered the false alarm threshold for identity-based facial discrimination compared to no threat. These results could be relevant for anxiety disorders in which excessive false alarms may contribute to overgeneralized threat responses.