SIGNATURE WORK
CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION 2023

Facial expression is a dominant nonverbal channel for communicating pain, which is often used in clinical pain assessment. Investigating the fundamental attentional dynamics involved in pain facial expressions is of unique value. However, little is known about how pain sufferers’ race and gender interdependently influence observers’ attentional processes when interpreting facial expressions of pain. To examine this, a dot-probe task was used to measure the general attentional biases and specific attentional processes (vigilance and disengagement) of forty-nine Chinese adults (36 females) towards pain facial expressions of East Asian, Black, and White males and females. The results showed that Chinese observers had heightened general attentional bias towards White female pain faces during the early stages of attention and increased attentional bias towards Black male pain faces during the later stages. Additionally, Chinese observers found it difficult to disengage their attention from White female pain faces and had a better ability to disengage from Asian female faces during the initial stage of attention. These findings highlight the interactive effects between sufferer race and gender on general attentional bias and specific attentional processes. Future studies could explore the underlying mechanisms and generalizability of the results.