Department for Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leipzig University, Neumarkt 9-19, 04109, Leipzig, Germany.
Leipzig Research Centre for Early Child Development, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 2024 Feb;55(1):24-35. doi: 10.1007/s10578-022-01383-y. Epub 2022 Jun 16.
This study measured visual attention (fixation count, dwell time) during two real-life social stress tasks using mobile eye-tracking glasses in children (9-13 years) diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD; n = 25) and a healthy control group (HC; n = 30). The influence of state anxiety on attention allocation and negative self-evaluation biases regarding gaze behavior were also examined. Compared to the HC group, children with SAD showed visual avoidance (i.e., fewer fixations) of the faces of interaction partners during the second social stress task. While visual avoidance in HC children decreased with declining state anxiety from the first to the second social stress task, no such effect was found in children with SAD. A negative self-evaluation bias regarding gaze behavior in children with SAD was not found. In sum, measuring visual attention during real-life social situations may help enhance our understanding of social attention in childhood SAD.
本研究使用移动眼动追踪眼镜，在现实生活中的两项社交压力任务中，对患有社交焦虑症（SAD；n=25）的儿童和健康对照组（HC；n=30）的视觉注意力（注视次数、注视持续时间）进行了测量。本研究还考察了状态焦虑对注意力分配的影响，以及对注视行为的消极自我评价偏差。与 HC 组相比，SAD 组的儿童在第二项社交压力任务中对互动伙伴的面部表现出视觉回避（即注视次数较少）。而在 HC 组中，随着从第一项到第二项社交压力任务中状态焦虑的降低，儿童的视觉回避也随之减少，但 SAD 组中并未发现这种效果。SAD 组的儿童并未表现出注视行为的消极自我评价偏差。总之，在现实生活中的社交情境中测量视觉注意力，可能有助于我们更好地理解儿童 SAD 中的社交注意力。
