Data for: How does gaze direction affect facial processing in social anxiety? —An ERP study.

Firstly, the present study provides the Electrophysiological evidence that gaze direction affects the processing of facial expressions in social anxiety. Secondly, our results demonstrate selective attentional bias towards self-relevant threatening information in social anxiety. The current ERP results demonstrated that identification of angry faces with direct but not averted gaze elicited larger N2 amplitudes in high socially anxious individuals compared to low socially anxious individuals. Lastly, significant correlations were found between the N2 amplitudes to angry faces with direct gaze and social anxiety severity in socially anxious participants. These results suggest that socially anxious individuals showed a selective attention bias to clear threatening information, and the N2 amplitudes which reflected social anxiety level could be used as electrophysiological indicator for social anxiety diagnosis and intervention.