%0 Journal Article
%T Threat shapes visual context sensitivity selectively through low-spatial-frequency channels.
%A Hu X
%A Feng B
%A Chen L
%A Luo W
%J Cognition
%V 230
%N 0
%D 01 2023
%M 36228380
%F 4.011
%R 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105305
%X Threat has long been supposed to affect human cognitive processing including visual size perception. Whether such threat-related modulation effect varies as a function of spatial frequency is largely unexplored. Here we used low- or high-pass filtered threatening animal and fearful face images as primes and measured their effects on the processing of the Ebbinghaus illusion. Results showed that threatening-animal primes relative to neutral ones significantly decreased the illusion magnitude in low-spatial-frequency rather than in high-spatial-frequency ranges. However, fearful- and neutral-face primes had a comparable effect on the illusion magnitude in both spatial frequency ranges. Notably, when inhibitory transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied to the left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), fearful-face primes significantly decreased the illusion magnitude in low-spatial-frequency rather than in high-spatial-frequency ranges. However, the opposite pattern of results was observed with right TPJ stimulation. The findings suggest that threat shapes basic aspects of visual perception in a spatial frequency-specific manner, possibly via magnocellular projections from both subcortical and cortical fear-processing systems to early visual cortex.