Supplementary data for the paper 'Loneliness, personality, and attention to AI-generated images depicting social threat: An eye-tracking study'

Attention bias towards social threat has been linked to loneliness and anxiety, though findings are mixed and concerns about measurement reliability persist. This study examined whether state and trait loneliness, along with personality, self-esteem, social anxiety, and life satisfaction, are associated with attention bias towards social threat images (indicating rejection or exclusion) in young adults (N = 241). AI-generated images were used to enhance control over stimulus content and category distinction. Participants completed an eye-tracking free-viewing task comprising 40 image matrices (four images per matrix, displayed for 6000 ms) and attention bias (dwell time percentage, total fixation duration percentage, and fixation count percentage) and initial orientation of attention (first fixation percentage) were computed. The attention bias measures showed adequate to good internal consistency (α = 0.61–0.86). No significant associations emerged between loneliness and attention to socially threatening stimuli, suggesting that heightened vigilance to social threat may not be a feature of loneliness in non-clinical young adults. However, it was found that females exhibited greater attention to social positive images, and baseline pupil diameter was associated with social anxiety. Future research should assess whether loneliness-specific attention bias is a replicable phenomenon, ideally by using an extreme-sampling approach with very lonely individuals.

对社交威胁的注意偏向（attention bias）与孤独感及焦虑症状存在关联，但现有研究结论并不统一，且测量信度方面的质疑始终存在。本研究以241名青年为被试，考察了状态孤独感与特质孤独感，以及人格、自尊、社交焦虑、生活满意度等变量，是否与对表征拒绝或排斥的社交威胁图片的注意偏向存在关联。本研究采用人工智能（AI）生成的图片，以提升对刺激材料内容与类别的操控精度。被试完成一项眼动自由观看任务，该任务包含40组图片矩阵（每组矩阵含4张图片，呈现时长为6000毫秒）；研究人员同时计算了多项指标：包括反映注意偏向的停留时长占比、总注视时长占比与注视次数占比，以及注意初始定向指标（首次注视占比）。各项注意偏向指标均表现出中等至良好的内部一致性，克朗巴赫α系数介于0.61至0.86之间。未发现孤独感与对社交威胁性刺激的注意存在显著关联，这表明在非临床青年群体中，对社交威胁的过度警觉或许并非孤独感的典型特征。但研究发现，女性对社交积极图片的注意程度显著更高，且基础瞳孔直径与社交焦虑存在显著关联。未来研究可采用极端取样法，选取极度孤独的被试，以验证孤独感特异性注意偏向是否为可重复的研究现象。