Garner Matthew, Baldwin David S, Bradley Brendan P, Mogg Karin
Division of Clinical Neuroscience, School of Medicine, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United
J Affect Disord. 2009 Jun;115(3):460-5. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2008.10.020. Epub 2008 Dec 4.
Cognitive models and interventions for anxiety assume that socially anxious individuals interpret ambiguous social information in a threatening manner. However, experimental evidence for this hypothesised cognitive bias is mixed. The present study is novel in using a signal detection approach to clarify whether Generalised Social Phobia (GSP) is associated with biased identification of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions.
16 patients with GSP and 17 non-anxious volunteers classified ambiguous emotional facial expressions, with each face reflecting a blend of two emotions: angry-happy, fearful-happy and fearful-angry. Discrimination accuracy and response criterion were assessed.
Patients with GSP showed significantly poorer discrimination of ambiguous emotional facial expressions that contained an element of fear (i.e., fearful-happy and fearful-angry expressions), compared to non-anxious controls. The groups did not significantly differ in discrimination of faces which lacked fear content (i.e., angry-happy blend), or on measures of response criterion.
Small sample size, coexisting depressive symptoms.
Findings indicate a selective impairment in fear identification in GSP. Results are discussed with reference to neurocognitive models of anxiety, and research on serotonergic modulation of emotional face processing.
焦虑的认知模型及干预措施假定，社交焦虑个体以威胁性方式解读模糊的社交信息。然而，这一假设的认知偏差的实验证据并不一致。本研究的新颖之处在于采用信号检测方法，以阐明广泛性社交恐惧症（GSP）是否与情绪模糊面部表情的偏差识别有关。
16名GSP患者和17名非焦虑志愿者对模糊的情绪面部表情进行分类，每张脸反映两种情绪的混合：愤怒-高兴、恐惧-高兴和恐惧-愤怒。评估辨别准确性和反应标准。
与非焦虑对照组相比，GSP患者对包含恐惧元素的模糊情绪面部表情（即恐惧-高兴和恐惧-愤怒表情）的辨别能力明显较差。两组在对缺乏恐惧内容的面部表情（即愤怒-高兴混合表情）的辨别或反应标准测量上没有显著差异。
样本量小，存在共存的抑郁症状。
研究结果表明GSP患者在恐惧识别方面存在选择性损伤。结合焦虑的神经认知模型以及情绪面部加工的血清素能调节研究对结果进行了讨论。
