Analysis on components of attentional bias on anger and disgust emotional faces in college students with social anxiety disorders

Abstract

Objective To analyze the components of attentional bias on anger and disgust emotional faces in college students with social anxiety disorder. Methods DSM-V was used for clinical diagnosis after the initial screening with Interaction Anxiousness Scale. The subjects meet the inclusion criteria were divided into social anxiety disorder group (SAD group) and healthy control group (HC group). Koster's improved dot-probe paradigm was used in a 2 (group: SAD group, HC group)×2 (emotion categories: anger, disgust) mixed-design experiment, and the different characteristics of attentional bias between the two groups on different emotional faces were compared. Results In SAD group, under the condition of angry faces, the response times to the probe targets with the same or different positions from the negative faces were (369.7±53.0)ms and (447.2±54.3)ms, while the response times were (429.6±70.2)ms and (444.2±55.8)ms under the condition of disgust faces, and the SAD group showed attentional bias towards both anger and disgust faces (t=24.15 and 2.45, P<0.05). Under the condition of anger faces, the response time of HC group to the consistent and inconsistent position of probe target were (466.9±40.0)ms and (483.8±43.8) ms, and the HC group had an attentional bias towards anger faces(t=6.58, P<0.05). The response time under disgust faces was (493.8±43.6)ms and (498.0±46.7)ms in HC group, and did not show an attentional bias towards disgust(t=1.65, P=0.108). The scores of attentional orientation to anger faces in SAD group were significantly higher than those in the HC group(F=19.26, P<0.001), but there was no significant difference between the two groups towards disgust faces(F=0.02, P=0.897). Compared with disgust faces, the attentional orientation to anger faces was faster in both HC and SAD groups (F=101.66 and 8.00, P<0.05). Compared with the HC group, the SAD group had an impaired attentional disengagement from anger faces(F=8.66, P=0.004). Conclusion The students with social anxiety disorder have attentional bias towards both anger and disgust facial expressions, which manifested as facilitated attentional orientation and impaired attentional disengagement to anger faces. Key words: Social anxiety disorder; College students; Attentional bias; Facilitated attentional orientation; Impaired attentional disengagement