Background and objectives

Fixation on another person's eye-region may be an effective measure of one's level of empathy. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that this type of empathy measure may not be appropriate for individuals with high levels of social anxiety, since avoidance or hypervigilance attentional biases towards emotional faces are frequent in this condition.

Methods

Using eye-tracking, we measured fixation time on the eye-region of another person in participants with low vs. high social anxiety, and we correlated this measure with empathy levels. In a second eye-tracking task, the two groups of participants were presented with pairs of emotional-neutral faces to determine the presence of attentional biases.

Results

While participants with low social anxiety showed an association between empathy and fixation time on the other person's eyes, the association was null for participants with high social anxiety. Attentional biases towards emotional faces were absent in high social anxiety, but social anxiety correlated negatively with fixation on the eye region.

Limitations

Our sample was made up of Psychology undergraduates, and this may have had an influence on gaze behavior towards the eye region.

Conclusion

Fixation on the eye region is not a valid measure of empathy in high social anxiety, possibly due to systematic eye-region avoidance.

中文翻译：

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看看我：在低与高社交焦虑中，共情与对情绪眼区的固定之间的关系。

背景和目标

对另一个人的眼睛区域的注视可能是衡量一个人同理心水平的有效措施。在本研究中，我们检验了这样一种假设，即这种类型的同理心测量可能不适合具有高度社交焦虑的个体，因为在这种情况下，对情绪面孔的回避或高度警惕的注意力偏差很常见。

方法

使用眼动追踪，我们测量了具有低社交焦虑和高社交焦虑的参与者对另一个人眼睛区域的注视时间，并将该测量与同理心水平相关联。在第二项眼动追踪任务中，两组参与者被展示了一对情绪中立的面孔，以确定注意力偏差的存在。

结果

虽然社交焦虑程度较低的参与者表现出同理心与注视对方眼睛的时间之间存在关联，但对于社交焦虑程度较高的参与者来说，这种关联是无效的。高度社交焦虑中不存在对情绪面孔的注意偏见，但社交焦虑与眼睛区域的固定呈负相关。

限制

我们的样本由心理学本科生组成，这可能对眼睛区域的凝视行为产生了影响。

结论

在高度社交焦虑中，对眼部区域的固定不是衡量同理心的有效措施，这可能是由于系统地回避了眼部区域。