Does Selection History Influence Attentional Capture by Threat in the Dot-Probe Task?

Threatening stimuli are often thought to have sufficient potency to capture spatial attentional resources over neutral stimuli. But few studies have examined if implicit factors like the selection history of the threatening stimulus influences such cases of capture. Here we tested whether capture by threat in the recent past (i.e., the previous trial) would carryover, or influence capture by threat in the present (i.e., the current trial). In two highly powered dot-probe experiments, we observed a small and a reverse capture effect (sometimes referred to as avoidance) for fearful faces (n = 241) and threatening images (n = 82), respectively. Critically, we found no evidence of carryover effects for either type of threatening stimuli. We conclude that within the standard dot-probe paradigm, capture by threat in healthy adults is not moderated by the selection history for threatening stimuli.