Psychosocial stress has been shown to alter social perception and behavior. In the present study, we investigated whether a standardized psychosocial stressor modulates the perceptual sensitivity for positive and negative facial emotions and the tendency to allocate attention to facial expressions. Fifty-four male participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups (TSST-G) or a nonstressful control condition before they performed a facial emotions detection task and a facial dot-probe task to assess attention for positive and negative facial expressions. Saliva samples were collected over the course of the experiment to measure free cortisol and alpha amylase. In response to the TSST-G, participants showed marked increases in subjective stress, salivary cortisol, and alpha amylase compared to the control condition. In the control condition, detection performance was higher for angry compared to happy facial expressions, while in the stressful condition this difference was reversed. Here, participants were more sensitive to happy compared to angry facial expressions. Attention was unaffected by psychosocial stress. The results suggest that psychosocial stress shifts social perception in terms of detection sensitivity for facial expressions toward positive social cues, a pattern that is consistent with the tendency to seek social support for coping with stress.

中文翻译：

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急性社会心理压力调节面部情绪的检测灵敏度。

社会心理压力已被证明会改变社会认知和行为。在本研究中，我们调查了标准化的社会心理压力源是否会调节对正面和负面面部情绪的感知敏感性以及将注意力分配到面部表情的倾向。54 名男性参与者在执行面部情绪检测任务和面部点探测任务以评估对正面和负面面部表情的注意力之前，接受了团体特里尔社会压力测试 (TSST-G) 或非压力控制条件。在实验过程中收集唾液样本以测量游离皮质醇和α淀粉酶。作为对 TSST-G 的响应，与对照条件相比，参与者的主观压力、唾液皮质醇和 α 淀粉酶显着增加。在控制条件下，与快乐面部表情相比，愤怒的检测性能更高，而在压力条件下，这种差异被逆转。在这里，与愤怒的面部表情相比，参与者对快乐更敏感。注意力不受社会心理压力的影响。结果表明，社会心理压力将社会感知在面部表情的检测敏感性方面转变为积极的社会线索，这种模式与寻求社会支持以应对压力的趋势一致。