Influence of affective verbal context on emotional facial expression perception of social anxiety

Sutao Song; Shimeng Zhao; Zeyuan Gao; Mingli Lu; Mingxian Zhang; Shihao Gao; Yuanjie Zheng

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.09.002

Influence of affective verbal context on emotional facial expression perception of social anxiety

Int J Psychophysiol. 2022 Nov:181:141-149. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.09.002. Epub 2022 Sep 13.

Authors

Sutao Song¹, Shimeng Zhao², Zeyuan Gao², Mingli Lu³, Mingxian Zhang⁴, Shihao Gao², Yuanjie Zheng⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China; School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China. Electronic address: sutao.song@sdnu.edu.cn.
² School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China.
³ School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), Affiliated Mental Health Center (ECNU), School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 200062; Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai, China, 200335; NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China, 200062.
⁴ School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China; Center for Study of Applied Psychology, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
⁵ School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China. Electronic address: yjzheng@sdnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 36108800
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.09.002

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that the perception of ambiguous facial expressions for individuals with social anxiety was influenced by the affective verbal context. However, it is still unknown how emotional facial expressions are perceived by individuals with social anxiety in the context of the verbal context. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) technology to examine how individuals with social anxiety perceive emotional facial expressions in positive and negative contexts. The results showed that: (1) Within the negative verbal contexts, the amplitude of P1 induced by facial expressions in the social anxiety group was significantly higher than that induced by the healthy control group; The N170 amplitude induced by facial expressions in social anxiety group was less negative than that in the healthy control group, and was not affected by the context. (2) The social anxiety group had significantly higher LPP in negative contexts elicited by angry expressions than by happy expressions. This study proved that the perception of emotional facial expressions was influenced by top-down information in the early and late stages of visual perception for individuals with social anxiety.

Keywords: Context; ERPs; Facial expression; Social anxiety.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Anxiety
Electroencephalography* / methods
Emotions / physiology
Evoked Potentials / physiology
Facial Expression*
Humans
Social Perception
Visual Perception