Social anxiety is characterized by persistent and excessive fear of negative evaluation by others which can lead to avoidance and physiological arousal when in social situations. Pupil size is a...Show moreSocial anxiety is characterized by persistent and excessive fear of negative evaluation by others which can lead to avoidance and physiological arousal when in social situations. Pupil size is a reliable indicator of physiological arousal and can be measured using pupillometry. Cognitive models postulate that social anxiety is related to enhanced pupil dilation, whereas empirical studies show decreased pupil dilation. This contradiction could be explained by an avoidance of processing threatening stimuli in individuals with social anxiety. Moreover, a higher degree of intimacy may lead to a higher likelihood of avoidance, resulting in greater reduction in pupil size. This study investigated the effect of social anxiety on pupil size during a face-to-face conversation task and the effect of intimacy of topic (high vs low) on this relationship. The present study had an experimental, correlational design and included 66 female participants aged between 18 and 30. Social anxiety was measured by the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale questionnaire and pupil size was recorded by wearable eye-trackers. Participants had a conversation task with a confederate consisting of 18 questions. These questions were divided in three blocks of 6, wherein block 1 and 3 were low in intimacy and block 2 was high in intimacy. For the analyses the pupil size of the left, right and average of both eyes was used. For the left-eye, right-eye and average of both eyes’ pupil size, the ANCOVA revealed no main effect of social anxiety, intimacy of topic and no interaction effect between social anxiety and intimacy of topic. In the preliminary analysis, a main effect of time was found. The current study was one of the first studies that used a face-to-face conversation task with varying levels of intimacy to investigate the relationship between social anxiety and pupil size. No significant effects were found between level of social anxiety and pupil size, as well as for the effect of intimacy of topic. However, there was a significant effect found for time, with pupil size decreasing over time in all participants. More research is needed to investigate these relationships.Show less
The relationship between social anxiety and gaze avoidance was investigated in previous research and indicated that socially anxious individuals avoid eye contact during social interaction to...Show moreThe relationship between social anxiety and gaze avoidance was investigated in previous research and indicated that socially anxious individuals avoid eye contact during social interaction to reduce the level of social anxiety. However, recent studies suggested that socially anxious individuals might fixate on alternative sources of social information to gather social cues and improve social interactions. The current study aimed to investigate the influence of social anxiety on gaze patterns during social interaction. The participants (n = 59) were asked to engage in a face-to-face gettingacquainted conversation with a confederate. The fixation counts and duration on the mouth and the eyes were collected using an eye-tracker and the level of social anxiety was measured using Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale-Self Report (LSAS-SR). The results showed there was no effect of social anxiety on gaze patterns, in terms of fixation count and duration, during a face-to-face conversation. However, the study found a marginally significant effect on facial regions regardless of the social anxiety level, indicating that participants fixated more frequently on the mouth than on the eyes. The current study suggested that the mouth region may be an important variable to consider in future investigations. The limitations of the current study highlighted the need for further investigation with a larger sample, diversely distributed levels of social anxiety, and naturalistic conditions.Show less
Background and objectives: It has long been stated that a prominent feature of social anxiety is gaze avoidance, and while a large body of literature has studied face gaze behavior in individuals...Show moreBackground and objectives: It has long been stated that a prominent feature of social anxiety is gaze avoidance, and while a large body of literature has studied face gaze behavior in individuals with social anxiety traits, eye gaze has not gained enough attention. Eye gaze has also been shown to be suggestible to conversational phases and more specifically, it is decreased while speaking. Furthermore, research to date is lacking in naturalistic experiments with live interactions. The present study investigated the effects of social anxiety on eye gaze behavior while also taking into consideration the conversational role as a modulating factor during a face-to-face, dyadic interaction. Methods: Fifty-five female participants (M = 20.60 years, SD = 2.24) were recruited for this study. Their level of anxiety was measured using the Leibowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) and according to their scores, they were assigned to two groups (high /low socially anxious). Participants engaged in a turn-taking, getting acquainted conversation with a female confederate, while their eye movements were being tracked using Tobii eye-tracking glasses. Three eye gaze measures were extracted and studied: proportion of fixations, total fixation duration and mean fixation duration. Results: The results showed a significant relation between reduced eye gaze and high levels of social anxiety on the proportion of fixations and total fixation duration. Decreased eye gaze was also observed during the speaking phase, regardless of social anxiety levels on all three measures of eye gaze. Contrary to our last hypothesis, no significant interaction effects were found when taking both social anxiety and conversational role into account. Conclusion: The current findings stress the importance of tackling safety-seeking behaviors when treating individuals that are at risk of Social Anxiety Disorder for more successful social interactions. More research that will study eye gaze in particular during real-life social interactions is needed, as the relevant literature is scarce. Limitations of the current study as well as suggestions for future work are discussed.Show less
Background: Social anxiety has been found to influence certain characteristics of the voice during various structured speaking tasks, but its assessment in more naturalistic contexts is scarce....Show moreBackground: Social anxiety has been found to influence certain characteristics of the voice during various structured speaking tasks, but its assessment in more naturalistic contexts is scarce. When directly looked at, socially anxious individuals feel more intimidated compared to when their social partner averts their eye gaze. The primary aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between social anxiety and five vocal characteristics (including mean voice intensity, mean fundamental frequency, rate, pausing, and speech duration) during a face-to-face conversation. A secondary aim was to examine the moderating effect of a social partner’s gaze direction (direct vs. averted gaze) on this relationship. Methods: Fifty-two university students (M = 21.27 years old, 86.5% female) participated in a face-to-face conversation task with a same-sex confederate. Both the participants and the confederates were given four question cards which they were asked to answer interchangeably. The confederates’ cards also included instructions about gaze direction without the participants knowing. Throughout the conversation task, participants’ voices were recorded using high-quality wearable eye-trackers. Results: The analyses revealed that neither social anxiety nor social partner gaze direction affected vocal characteristics during the conversation task. Conclusion: Increased mean fundamental frequency and degree of pausing and decreased mean voice intensity, speech rate, and duration were not identified as potential physiological indicators of social anxiety. Though translating such findings into real-life social interactions proved to be a difficult venture, future researchers could further investigate this topic with the hope of better clarifying the relationship between social anxiety and atypical voice patterns, as well as the moderating effect of confederate gaze direction on the speech patterns of more or less socially anxious individuals.Show less
This study investigated the effect of social anxiety on the expressions of four paralinguistic features; Fundamental frequency (F0), Voice Intensity, Number of pauses, and Pace, as well as the...Show moreThis study investigated the effect of social anxiety on the expressions of four paralinguistic features; Fundamental frequency (F0), Voice Intensity, Number of pauses, and Pace, as well as the possible moderation of level of self-disclosure in this relationship. Previous research has shown significant effects of social anxiety on all four paralinguistic features and has established a link between social anxiety and level of self-disclosure. However, these have yet to be studied in conjunction - especially in the real-life situation of a face-to-face conversation. Therefore a final sample of 53 students with high or low social anxiety participated in a recorded face-to-face conversation with a confederate. Eighteen questions were asked in an alternating pattern, ranging in different levels of intimacy (High/Low). There were five hypotheses: That HSA individuals would display increased fundamental frequency as compared to LSA individuals, that HSA individuals would have an increased number of pauses as compared to the LSA group, that the HSA group would have a lower intensity as compared to the LSA group, that the HSA group would have a faster speech rate, and that level of intimacy would have a moderating effect on the relationship between level of anxiety and the paralinguistic features. Results revealed no significant effect of level of social anxiety on expression of paralinguistic features. Additionally, we found no evidence for a moderation effect of intimacy on the relationship between social anxiety and paralinguistic features. This study contributed to the growing literature on social anxiety and paralinguistic features, with novel insights into the role of intimacy and aiding in a better understanding that could lead to more suitable and objective measures of social anxiety in the future and help the growing population of those affected by it throughout their lifetime.Show less
Research into facial biases has found that individuals often favour facial information presented in their left as opposed to their right visual field. Using eye-tracking glasses, this study aimed...Show moreResearch into facial biases has found that individuals often favour facial information presented in their left as opposed to their right visual field. Using eye-tracking glasses, this study aimed to investigate left visual field bias (LVFB) in a real-world social setting. To the best of our knowledge, this study was the first to examine LVFB in a real-world social setting. Furthermore, the effects of social anxiety on LVFB were explored. The results of this study confirm that individuals express LVFB in a real-world social situation. This study found no significant result for the effect of social anxiety (SA) on LVFB. This study also posed an exploratory question of the persistence of LVFB over time (conversation duration). No significant result was found for the influence of time and persistence of LVFB over the duration of the social setting. In conclusion, LVFB applies to a real-world social setting. However, as this study was the first to make use of a real-world social situation more research is needed. Future research could involve clinical samples to clarify the influence of social anxiety on LVFB in real-world social situations.Show less
Gaze to faces plays a vital role in communicating and perceiving social cues from one’s partner during social interactions. Visual avoidance of faces has been proposed to be a behavioural indicator...Show moreGaze to faces plays a vital role in communicating and perceiving social cues from one’s partner during social interactions. Visual avoidance of faces has been proposed to be a behavioural indicator of social anxiety. Furthermore, initial evidence suggests that an interaction partner’s direct gaze is perceived as more threatening than an averted gaze. This study investigated the influence of social anxiety on face gaze behaviour and whether the gaze direction modulates the effect of social anxiety on face gaze behaviour during a face-to-face conversation. 34 participants (82.4% female, 17.6% male) and confederate took turns answering a given set of questions about general topics. The gaze direction of the confederate was systematically manipulated to either look directly towards or turn away from the participant’s face. Participants’ face gaze behaviour was recorded using the Tobii Glasses 2 wearable eye tracker device and measured by calculating the total duration of fixation on the face and the proportion of fixation counts on the face. The results indicate that participants with varying levels of social anxiety did not display different face gaze behaviour during a face-to-face conversation. Moreover, an interaction partner’s gaze direction did not enhance nor diminish the effect of social anxiety on face gaze behaviour. The current findings suggest that social anxiety has no significant influence on participants' face gaze behaviour during a face-to-face conversation. Future research may consider using controversial conversation topics in order to induce a more threatening social situation.Show less
Introduction. Socially anxious individuals express fear or anxiety in circumstances in which others might judge them. It has been suggested that social anxiety affects various voice characteristics...Show moreIntroduction. Socially anxious individuals express fear or anxiety in circumstances in which others might judge them. It has been suggested that social anxiety affects various voice characteristics, such as pitch and speech intensity, however the relationship between social anxiety and speech patterns has rarely been examined in actual social interactions (face-to-face setting). This study aimed to investigate the relationship between social anxiety and speech patterns, operationalized as pitch and speech intensity; and further assess the influence of social partners’ gaze direction (direct versus averted gaze) on the relationship. Methods. Twenty-six females (Mage = 21) were engaged in a face-to-face getting-acquainted conversation with a female confederate. While in conversation, participants and confederate took turns discussing general topics. The confederate’s gaze direction (direct versus averted) was manipulated. Participants’ social anxiety levels were measured by the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, and Tobii eye-tracking glasses recorded auditory data. Vocal pitch and speech intensity were extracted with PRAAT. Results. The results reveal a significant relationship between social anxiety and speech intensity, whereby high socially anxious individuals spoke more quietly. There was no association between social anxiety and pitch. Confederates’ gaze direction did not influence the relationship between social anxiety and speech patterns. Conclusion. The findings illustrate social anxiety’s effects on speech intensity, regardless of the influence of a social partner’s gaze direction. Moreover, the outcome implies that pitch might be sensitive and closely tied to various situational factors. This underlines the extent of social anxiety’s influence on various human facets and social settings.Show less
