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Song S, Liu A, Gao Z, Tian X, Zhu L, Shang H, Gao S, Zhang M, Zhao S, Xiao G, Zheng Y, Ge R. Event-related alpha power in early stage of facial expression processing in social anxiety: Influence of language context. Psychophysiology 2024; 61:e14455. [PMID: 37817450 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14455] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/25/2022] [Revised: 09/11/2023] [Accepted: 09/21/2023] [Indexed: 10/12/2023]
Abstract
Accurate interpretation of the emotional information conveyed by others' facial expressions is crucial for social interactions. Event-related alpha power, measured by time-frequency analysis, is a frequently used EEG index of emotional information processing. However, it is still unclear how event-related alpha power varies in emotional information processing in social anxiety groups. In the present study, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) while participants from the social anxiety and healthy control groups viewed facial expressions (angry, happy, neutral) preceded by contextual sentences conveying either a positive or negative evaluation of the subject. The impact of context on facial expression processing in both groups of participants was explored by assessing behavioral ratings and event-related alpha power (0-200 ms after expression presentation). In comparison to the healthy control group, the social anxiety group exhibited significantly lower occipital alpha power in response to angry facial expressions in negative contexts and neutral facial expressions in positive contexts. The influence of language context on facial expression processing in individuals with social anxiety may occur at an early stage of processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sutao Song
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
- School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China
| | - Aixin Liu
- School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China
- Department of Psychology, Soochow University, Suzhou, China
| | - Zeyuan Gao
- School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China
| | - Xiaodong Tian
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
| | - Lingkai Zhu
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
| | - Haiqing Shang
- School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China
| | - Shihao Gao
- School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China
| | - Mingxian Zhang
- School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China
- Center for Study of Applied Psychology, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Shimeng Zhao
- School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China
| | - Guanlai Xiao
- School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China
| | - Yuanjie Zheng
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
| | - Ruiyang Ge
- Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
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Liu T, Sui J, Hildebrandt A. To see or not to see: the parallel processing of self-relevance and facial expressions. Cogn Res Princ Implic 2023; 8:70. [PMID: 37991559 PMCID: PMC10665284 DOI: 10.1186/s41235-023-00524-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/24/2023] [Accepted: 11/10/2023] [Indexed: 11/23/2023] Open
Abstract
The self, like the concept of central "gravity", facilitates the processing of information that is directly relevant to the self. This phenomenon is known as the self-prioritization effect. However, it remains unclear whether the self-prioritization effect extends to the processing of emotional facial expressions. To fill this gap, we used a self-association paradigm to investigate the impact of self-relevance on the recognition of emotional facial expressions while controlling for confounding factors such as familiarity and overlearning. Using a large and diverse sample, we replicated the effect of self-relevance on face processing but found no evidence for a modulation of self-relevance on facial emotion recognition. We propose two potential theoretical explanations to account for these findings and emphasize that further research with different experimental designs and a multitasks measurement approach is needed to understand this mechanism fully. Overall, our study contributes to the literature on the parallel cognitive processing of self-relevance and facial emotion recognition, with implications for both social and cognitive psychology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tuo Liu
- Division for Psychological Methods and Statistics, Department of Psychology, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany.
| | - Jie Sui
- School of Psychology, King's College, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
| | - Andrea Hildebrandt
- Division for Psychological Methods and Statistics, Department of Psychology, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
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McKendrick M, Butler SH, Grealy MA. Socio-cognitive load and social anxiety in an emotional anti-saccade task. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0197749. [PMID: 29795619 PMCID: PMC5967794 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0197749] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2017] [Accepted: 05/08/2018] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
The anti-saccade task has been used to measure attentional control related to general anxiety but less so with social anxiety specifically. Previous research has not been conclusive in suggesting that social anxiety may lead to difficulties in inhibiting faces. It is possible that static face paradigms do not convey a sufficient social threat to elicit an inhibitory response in socially anxious individuals. The aim of the current study was twofold. We investigated the effect of social anxiety on performance in an anti-saccade task with neutral or emotional faces preceded either by a social stressor (Experiment 1), or valenced sentence primes designed to increase the social salience of the task (Experiment 2). Our results indicated that latencies were significantly longer for happy than angry faces. Additionally, and surprisingly, high anxious participants made more erroneous anti-saccades to neutral than angry and happy faces, whilst the low anxious groups exhibited a trend in the opposite direction. Results are consistent with a general approach-avoidance response for positive and threatening social information. However increased socio-cognitive load may alter attentional control with high anxious individuals avoiding emotional faces, but finding it more difficult to inhibit ambiguous faces. The effects of social sentence primes on attention appear to be subtle but suggest that the anti-saccade task will only elicit socially relevant responses where the paradigm is more ecologically valid.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mel McKendrick
- School of Life Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- * E-mail:
| | - Stephen H. Butler
- School of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom
| | - Madeleine A. Grealy
- School of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom
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