Hyperscanning and avoidance in social anxiety disorder: The visual scanpath during public speaking

Hyperscanning and avoidance in social anxiety disorder: The visual scanpath during public speaking

Abstract Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a debilitating mental illness which is thought to be maintained in part by the aberrant attentional processing of socially relevant information. Critically however, research has not assessed whether such aberrant attentional processing occurs during social-e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychiatry research Vol. 225; no. 3; pp. 667 - 672
Main Authors: Chen, Nigel Teik Ming, Thomas, Laurenn Maree, Clarke, Patrick Joseph Fraser, Hickie, Ian Bernard, Guastella, Adam John
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Ireland Elsevier Ireland Ltd 28-02-2015
Subjects:
Adult
Arousal
Attention
Attentional bias
Avoidance
Avoidance Learning
Eye gaze
Facial Expression
Fear - psychology
Female
Fixation, Ocular
Humans
Male
Phobic Disorders - diagnosis
Phobic Disorders - psychology
Psychiatry
Saccades
Social anxiety
Social Environment
Social Perception
Speech
Speech task
Stress
Visual scanning
Young Adult
Attentional bias
Visual scanning
Social anxiety
Eye gaze
Speech task
Avoidance
Stress
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Summary:Abstract Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a debilitating mental illness which is thought to be maintained in part by the aberrant attentional processing of socially relevant information. Critically however, research has not assessed whether such aberrant attentional processing occurs during social-evaluative contexts characteristically feared in SAD. The current study presents a novel approach for the assessment of the visuocognitive biases operating in SAD during a social-evaluative stressor. For this task, clinically socially anxious participants and controls were required to give a brief impromptu speech in front of a pre-recorded audience who intermittently displayed socially positive or threatening gestures. Participant gaze at the audience display was recorded throughout the speech. Socially anxious participants exhibited a significantly longer visual scanpath, relative to controls. In addition, socially anxious participants spent relatively longer time fixating at the non-social regions in between and around the confederates. The findings of the present study suggest that SAD is associated with hyperscanning and the attentional avoidance of social stimuli.
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ISSN:0165-1781
1872-7123
DOI:10.1016/j.psychres.2014.11.025