The Effects of Social Anxiety and State Anxiety on Visual Attention: Testing the Vigilance–Avoidance Hypothesis

Singh, J. Suzanne; Capozzoli, Michelle C.; Dodd, Michael D.; Hope, Debra A.

doi:10.1080/16506073.2015.1016447

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Relating to the vigilance-avoidance hypothesis, our results indicate that HSA directed especially their initial attention at CS+ than CS− agents at the first half of the fear acquisition, and avoided subsequently the CS+ more than the CS− agents at the second half of the fear acquisition to possibly reduce emotional distress. Our findings are compliant with the assumption that HSA or persons with SAD guide their initial attention to emotionally threatening information and tend to avoid eye contact or threatening stimuli to might reduce anxiety directly (Chen et al, 2002;Wieser et al, 2009b;Singh et al, 2015;Shechner et al, 2017). For clear evidence of a hypervigilance bias, we would have expected that HSA participants should guide their initial attention more toward threatening than non-threatening agents at the second half of the fear acquisition as well.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…The authors emphasize that socially anxious persons utilize an exaggerated attentional allocation toward any sign of impending negative feedback of others, which can lead to biased estimations of a more threatening social environment and that a wisp of negative evaluation will be perceived rapidly and reinforce the threatening negative selfevaluation (Heimberg et al, 2014). Chen and Clarke (2017) report in their review that there are different results in empirical research among socially anxious humans with attentional bias to relevant emotionally threat stimuli (Gilboa-Schechtman et al, 1999;Perowne and Mansell, 2002;Lange et al, 2011;Çek et al, 2016;Lazarov et al, 2016) and who also exhibited attentional avoidance toward socially feared information (Chen et al, 2002;Wieser et al, 2009b;Singh et al, 2015;Shechner et al, 2017). Mogg and Bradley (2002) suggest that vigilant patterns of attention may be located in initially attentional processing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gaze Behavior in Social Fear Conditioning: An Eye-Tracking Study in Virtual Reality

2020

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The vigilance-avoidance hypothesis of selective attention assumes that socially anxious persons initially direct their attention toward fear-related stimuli and subsequently avoid these social stimuli to reduce emotional distress. New technical developments provide tools to implicit measure overt attention on fear-related stimuli via eyetracking in ecological valid virtual environments presented via a head-mounted display. We examined in 27 low (LSA) and 26 high socially anxious (HSA) individuals fear ratings, physical behavior (duration of approach), hypervigilance (time to first fixation), and attentional avoidance (count of fixations) toward virtual female and male agents (CS) during social fear conditioning (SFC) and extinction in virtual reality (VR). As hypothesized, generally SFC was successfully induced and extinguished concerning the fear ratings. Our findings partly support the vigilance-avoidance hypothesis as HSA directed especially at the first half of the fear acquisition their initial attention more at CS+ than CS− agents, and avoided subsequently the CS+ more than the CS− agents during the fear acquisition. In contrast, in LSA participants initial and sustained attention did not differ between CS+ and CS− agents during fear acquisition. We conclude that HSA individuals guide their initial attention to emotionally threatening stimuli and subsequently avoid the threatening stimuli to possibly reduce their emotional distress, whereas LSA individuals regulate themselves less in their (fear) responses during SFC. Measuring implicit gaze behavior within a well-controlled virtual environment is an interesting innovative tool to in deeply investigate the impact of attention on emotional learning processes.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gaze Behavior in Social Fear Conditioning: An Eye-Tracking Study in Virtual Reality

2020

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“…Apart from the obvious benefit of further understanding everyday communication, there are multiple other fields of research that can benefit. For example, further understanding the role of eye gaze in different contexts such as tasks requiring joint attention 49 , 50 , education 51 , social anxiety 52 , other psychological disorders 20 , 53 , 54 , and the creation of socially capable artificially intelligent systems 55 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using dual eye tracking to uncover personal gaze patterns during social interaction

Rogers

Speelman

Guidetti

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

138

117

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We report the personal eye gaze patterns of people engaged in face-to-face getting acquainted conversation. Considerable differences between individuals are underscored by a stability of eye gaze patterns within individuals. Results suggest the existence of an eye-mouth gaze continuum. This continuum includes some people showing a strong preference for eye gaze, some with a strong preference for mouth gaze, and others distributing their gaze between the eyes and mouth to varying extents. Additionally, we found evidence of within-participant consistency not just for location preference but also for the duration of fixations upon the eye and mouth regions. We also estimate that during a 4-minute getting acquainted conversation mutual face gaze constitutes about 60% of conversation that occurs via typically brief instances of 2.2 seconds. Mutual eye contact ranged from 0–45% of conversation, via very brief instances. This was despite participants subjectively perceiving eye contact occurring for about 70% of conversation. We argue that the subjective perception of eye contact is a product of mutual face gaze instead of actual mutual eye contact. We also outline the fast activity of gaze movements upon various locations both on and off face during a typical face-to-face conversation.

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“…Additionally, the literature is replete with mixed findings regarding external attentional biases, especially after initial detection of threat. Whereas many studies suggest that socially anxious subjects direct attention away from socially threatening stimuli after detecting them (e.g., Mogg et al, 2004;Singh, Capozzoli, Dodd, & Hope, 2015), other studies suggest that they show difficulty disengaging attention from social threat (e.g., Buckner et al, 2010;Schofield et al, 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of self-focus on attentional biases in social anxiety:An ERP study

Judah

Grant

Carlisle

2015

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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Cognitive theories of social anxiety disorder suggest that biased attention plays a key role in maintaining symptoms. These biases include self-focus and attention to socially threatening stimuli in the environment. The goal of this study was to utilize ERPs that are elicited by a change detection task to examine biases in selective attention (i.e., N2pc) and working memory maintenance (i.e., contralateral delay activity; CDA). Additionally, the effect of self-focus was examined using false heart rate feedback. In support of the manipulation, self-focus cues resulted in greater selfreported self-consciousness and task interference, enhanced anterior P2 amplitude and reduced SPN amplitude. Moreover, P2 amplitude for self-focus cues was correlated with reduced task performance for socially anxious subjects only. The difference in P2 amplitude between self-focus and standard cues was correlated with social anxiety independent of depression. As hypothesized, socially anxious participants (n = 20) showed early selection and maintenance of disgust faces relative to neutral faces as indicated by the N2pc and CDA components. Nonanxious controls (n = 22) did not show these biases. During self-focus cues, controls showed marginal evidence of biased selection for disgust faces, whereas socially anxious subjects showed no bias in this condition. Controls showed an ipsilateral delay activity after being cued to attend to one hemifield. Overall, this study supports early and persistent attentional bias for social threat in socially anxious individuals. Furthermore, self-focus may disrupt these biases. These findings and supplementary data are discussed in light of cognitive models of social anxiety disorder, recent empirical findings, and treatment.

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The Effects of Social Anxiety and State Anxiety on Visual Attention: Testing the Vigilance–Avoidance Hypothesis

Cited by 18 publications

References 43 publications

Gaze Behavior in Social Fear Conditioning: An Eye-Tracking Study in Virtual Reality

Gaze Behavior in Social Fear Conditioning: An Eye-Tracking Study in Virtual Reality

Using dual eye tracking to uncover personal gaze patterns during social interaction

The effects of self-focus on attentional biases in social anxiety:An ERP study

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