Attention allocation in social anxiety during a speech

Abstract

Cognitive models assume that social anxiety is associated with and maintained by biased information processing, leading to change in attention allocation, which can be measured by examining eye movement. However, little is known about the distribution of attention among positive, neutral and negative stimuli during a social task and the relative importance of positive versus negative biases in social anxiety. In this study, eye movement, subjective state anxiety and psychophysiology of individuals with high trait social anxiety (HSA) and low trait social anxiety (LSA) were measured during a speech task with a pre-recorded audience. The HSA group showed longer total fixation on negative stimuli and shorter total fixation on positive stimuli compared to the LSA group. We observed that the LSA group shifted attention away from negative stimuli, whereas the HSA group showed no differential attention allocation. The total duration of fixation on negative stimuli predicted subjective anxiety ratings. These results point to a negative bias as well as a lack of a positive bias in HSA individuals during social threat.

Depression-related difficulties disengaging from negative faces are associated with sustained attention to negative feedback during social evaluation and predict stress recovery

“…First, our findings in the impromptu speech support an association between higher depression severity levels and sustained attention to negative social signals across the speech. In line with recent research using this eye-tracking based paradigm [16], maladaptive attention processing of social information during the socio-evaluative condition was evidenced by longer times attending to negative than to positive pictures in the audience. Our study is the first to examine this association in depression, suggesting that this can be a common pattern of processing in problems associated to difficulties in social interactions.…”

“…To obtain measures of attention bias to interpersonal feedback, we considered the total fixation time (i.e., the sum of the duration across fixations) on the negative (100% disgusted models) over the positive (100% happy models) pictures in each false feedback slide. This parameter is a commonly reported index of attention bias that is sensitive to individual differences in depressive symptom severity [9, 39] and it has been used in previous impromptu speech eye-tracking paradigms [16]. A relative bias score of fixation duration to negative over positive feedback at each of the seven feedback moments (i.e., negative versus positive pictures) was calculated within-subjects, by subtracting the total fixation time on 100% happy pictures from the total fixation time on 100% disgusted pictures at each false feedback slide.…”

“…Using eye-tracking to monitor gaze towards the pre-recorded audience during the speech it has been found that healthy individuals are characterized by longer times attending to positive feedback (i.e., positive expressions) than to other types of social feedback [15]. In contrast, participants showing shuttering problems [15] and high social anxiety levels [16] are characterized by longer fixation durations on negative feedback (i.e., negative expressions). Whether a similar behavioral pattern during the processing of socio-evaluative feedback may characterize depression, as the result of observed attentional disengagement impairments, remains untested.…”

“…We had two different predictions. First, if depression is characterized by maladaptive attentional processes during social interactions, depressive symptoms will be related to sustained processing of negative over positive feedback during the socio-evaluative situation, as observed in other problems related with difficulties in social interactions [15, 16]. Second, if, as proposed, depression-related attention biases are at the basis of maladaptive attentional processes during social interactions, patterns of sustained processing on negative feedback during the socio-evaluative situation should be associated with difficulties in the attentional disengagement from negative facial expressions as measured under standard conditions in former research [10].…”

“…Specifically, difficulties disengaging attention from negative faces in depression have been found to be associated with impaired mood regulation after anticipating a stressful situation (i.e., giving a speech; [10]). Similarly, recent evidence using the impromptu speech combined with eye-tracking has shown that the total duration of fixations on negative feedback during the speech was predictive of subjective anxiety ratings immediately after it [16]. …”