title: Social anxiety is related to increased dwell time on socially threatening faces.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Identification of reliable targets for therapeutic interventions is essential for developing evidence-based therapies. Threat-related attention bias has been implicated in the etiology and maintenance of social anxiety disorder. Extant response-time-based threat bias measures have demonstrated limited reliability and internal consistency. Here, we examined gaze patterns of socially anxious and nonanxious participants in relation to social threatening and neutral stimuli using an eye-tracking task, comprised of multiple threat and neutral stimuli, presented for an extended time-period. We tested the psychometric properties of this task with the hope to provide a solid stepping-stone for future treatment development.
  
  
  METHODS
  Eye gaze was tracked while participants freely viewed 60 different matrices comprised of eight disgusted and eight neutral facial expressions, presented for 6000ms each. Gaze patterns on threat and neutral areas of interest (AOIs) of participants with SAD, high socially anxious students and nonanxious students were compared. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were evaluated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants did not differ on first-fixation variables. However, overall, socially anxious students and participants with SAD dwelled significantly longer on threat faces compared with nonanxious participants, with no difference between the anxious groups. Groups did not differ in overall dwell time on neutral faces. Internal consistency of total dwell time on threat and neutral AOIs was high and one-week test-retest reliability was acceptable.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Only disgusted facial expressions were used. Relative small sample size.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Social anxiety is associated with increased dwell time on socially threatening stimuli, presenting a potential target for therapeutic intervention.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Israel. Electronic address: amitlaza@post.tau.ac.il.
authors.forename: Amit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lazarov
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
authors.forename: Rany
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Abend
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Israel; Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
authors.forename: Yair
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bar-Haim
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention allocation; Attention bias; Eye tracking; Reliability; Social anxiety