Wieser Matthias J, Pauli Paul, Weyers Peter, Alpers Georg W, Mühlberger Andreas
Department of Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg, Marcusstr. 9-11, 97070 Würzburg, Germany.
J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2009 Jun;116(6):717-23. doi: 10.1007/s00702-008-0101-0. Epub 2008 Aug 9.
The hypervigilance-avoidance hypothesis assumes that anxious individuals initially attend to and subsequently avoid threatening stimuli. In this study pairs of emotional (angry or happy) and neutral facial expressions were presented to students of high or low fear of negative evaluation (FNE) while their eye movements were recorded. High FNE participants initially looked more often at emotional compared to neutral faces, indicating an attentional bias for emotional facial expressions. This effect was further modulated by the sex of the face, as high FNE clearly showed a preference for happy female faces. Analysis of the time course of attention revealed that high FNE looked at the emotional faces longer during the first second of stimulus exposure, whereas they avoided these faces in the consecutive time interval from 1 to 1.5 s. These results partially support the hypervigilance-avoidance hypothesis and additionally indicate the relevance of happy faces for high FNE. Further research should clarify the meaning of happy facial expressions as well as the influence of the sex of the observed face in social anxiety.
过度警觉-回避假说认为，焦虑个体最初会关注并随后回避威胁性刺激。在本研究中，向高或低消极评价恐惧（FNE）的学生呈现成对的情绪性（愤怒或高兴）和中性面部表情，同时记录他们的眼动。与中性面孔相比，高FNE参与者最初更频繁地看向情绪性面孔，表明对情绪性面部表情存在注意偏向。面孔的性别进一步调节了这种效应，因为高FNE者明显表现出对高兴女性面孔的偏好。对注意时间进程的分析表明，高FNE者在刺激呈现的第一秒内看向情绪性面孔的时间更长，而在随后1至1.5秒的时间间隔内则回避这些面孔。这些结果部分支持了过度警觉-回避假说，并额外表明高兴面孔对高FNE者的相关性。进一步的研究应阐明高兴面部表情的意义以及所观察面孔的性别在社交焦虑中的影响。
