Background and objectives

Much of our current understanding of social anxiety rests on the use of highly restricted laboratory experiments. Latest technological developments now allow the investigation of eye movements and physiological measures during real social interactions. Considering the wealth of conflicting findings on gaze behavior in social anxiety, the current study aimed at elucidating the modulation of gaze patterns in a naturalistic setting.

Methods

We introduced 71 participants with differing social anxiety symptoms to a waiting room situation while recording heart rate, electrodermal activity and eye movements using mobile technology.

Results

We observed fewer fixations on the head of the confederate in the initial waiting phase of the experiment. These head fixations increased when the confederate was involved in a phone call and subsequently initiated an actual conversation. Contrary to gaze-avoidance models of social anxiety, we did not observe any correlations between social anxiety and visual attention but an elevated heart rate in participants with high social anxiety.

Limitations

Although social anxiety varied considerably in the current sample and reached clinically relevant levels in one third of participants, formal clinical diagnoses were not available.

Conclusions

The current findings suggest that gaze avoidance might only occur in specific situations or very high levels of social anxiety. Fear of eye contact could at times represent a subjectively experienced rather than an objectively measurable feature of the disorder. The observation of elevated heart rate throughout the entire experiment indicates that physiological hyperactivity might constitute a cardinal feature of social anxiety.

中文翻译：

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社交焦虑与心率有关，但与真实社交互动中的凝视行为无关。

背景和目标

我们目前对社交焦虑的大部分理解都依赖于高度受限的实验室实验的使用。最新的技术发展现在允许在真实的社交互动中研究眼球运动和生理测量。考虑到社交焦虑中凝视行为的大量相互矛盾的发现，目前的研究旨在阐明自然环境中凝视模式的调制。

方法

我们将 71 名具有不同社交焦虑症状的参与者引入候诊室，同时使用移动技术记录心率、皮肤电活动和眼球运动。

结果

在实验的初始等待阶段，我们观察到对同盟者头部的注视较少。当同伙参与电话并随后发起实际对话时，这些头部固定会增加。与社交焦虑的凝视回避模型相反，我们没有观察到社交焦虑与视觉注意力之间存在任何相关性，但社交焦虑程度高的参与者的心率会升高。

限制

尽管当前样本中的社交焦虑差异很大，并且在三分之一的参与者中达到了临床相关水平，但无法获得正式的临床诊断。

结论

目前的研究结果表明，凝视回避可能只发生在特定情况或非常高水平的社交焦虑中。对眼神接触的恐惧有时可能代表一种主观体验而不是客观可衡量的疾病特征。在整个实验中观察到的心率升高表明，生理活动过度可能构成社交焦虑的一个主要特征。