title: The impact of high trait social anxiety on neural processing of facial emotion expressions in females.
abstract: A cognitive model of social anxiety predicts that an early attentional bias leads to greater cognitive processing of social threat signals, whereas the vigilance-avoidance model predicts there will be subsequent reduction in cognitive processing. This study tests these models by examining neural responses to social threat stimuli using Event-related potentials (ERP). 19 women with high trait social anxiety and 19 women with low trait social anxiety viewed emotional expressions (angry, disgusted, happy and neutral) in a passive viewing task whilst ERP responses were recorded. The HSA group revealed greater automatic attention, or hypervigilance, to all facial expressions, as indexed by greater N1 amplitude compared to the LSA group. They also showed greater sustained attention and elaborative processing of all facial expressions, indexed by significantly increased P2 and P3 amplitudes compared to the LSA group. These results support cognitive models of social anxiety, but are not consistent with predictions of the vigilance-avoidance model.
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Psychology, School of Medicine, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. Electronic address: Kim.Felmingham@utas.edu.au.
authors.forename: Kim L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Felmingham
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Psychology, School of Medicine, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.
authors.forename: Laura F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Swansea University, Wales; Department of Psychology, University of Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Kemp
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Psychology, School of Medicine, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrea R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Carr
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D000072861:Phobia, Social / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: ERP; Emotion; Event-related potentials; Social anxiety; Trait anxiety