Time course of selective attention to face regions in social anxiety: eye-tracking and computational modelling

We investigated the time course of selective attention to face regions during judgment of dis/approval by low (LSA) and high (HSA) social anxiety undergraduates (with clinical levels on questionnaire measures). The viewers’ gaze direction was assessed and the stimulus visual saliency of face regions was computed, for video-clips displaying dynamic facial expressions. Social anxiety was related to perception of disapproval from faces with an ambiguous smile (i.e. with non-happy eyes), but not those with congruent happy eyes and a smile. HSA observers selectively looked earlier at the eye region, whereas LSA ones preferentially looked at the smiling mouth. Consistently, gaze allocation was less related to visual saliency of the smile for HSA than for LSA viewers. The attentional bias towards the less salient eye region – thus opposing the automatic capture by the smile – suggests that it is strategically driven in HSA individuals, possibly aimed at detecting negative evaluators.本研究针对经问卷测量达到临床水平的低社交焦虑（LSA, Low Social Anxiety）与高社交焦虑（HSA, High Social Anxiety）本科生群体，考察其在判断面孔传递的赞同与不赞同态度时，对面孔区域的选择性注意时间进程。本实验采用呈现动态面部表情的视频片段作为刺激材料，评估被试的注视方向并计算面孔区域的视觉显著性。社交焦虑程度与对带有模糊微笑（即眼部无愉悦表情）的面孔所传递的不赞同态度的感知显著相关，但与眼部带有匹配愉悦表情的微笑面孔的此类感知无关。高社交焦虑被试会更早地选择性注视眼部区域，而低社交焦虑被试则优先注视带有微笑的嘴部区域。与之相一致的是，相较于低社交焦虑被试，高社交焦虑被试的注视分配与微笑区域的视觉显著性的关联程度更低。高社交焦虑个体对显著性更低的眼部区域存在注意偏向——这与微笑区域的自动注意力捕获效应相悖——这表明该注意偏向属于策略性驱动的，其目的可能是探测带有负面评价意图的对象。