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Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Conscious and Non-conscious Representations of Emotional Faces in Asperger's Syndrome
Published on: July 31, 2016
Avoidance of emotional facial expressions in social anxiety: The Approach-Avoidance Task
Kathrin Heuer1, Mike Rinck, Eni S Becker
1Department of General Psychology, Dresden University of Technology, D-01062 Dresden, Germany. heuer@psychologie.tu-dresden.de
Abstract:
The Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) was employed to indirectly investigate avoidance reactions to stimuli of potential social threat. Forty-three highly socially anxious individuals (HSAs) and 43 non-anxious controls (NACs) reacted to pictures of emotional facial expressions (angry, neutral, or smiling) or to control pictures (puzzles) by pulling a joystick towards themselves (approach) versus pushing it away from themselves (avoidance). HSAs showed stronger avoidance tendencies than NACs for smiling as well as angry faces, whereas no group differences were found for neutral faces and puzzles. In contrast, valence ratings of the emotional facial expressions did not differ between groups. A critical discrepancy between direct and indirect measures was observed for smiling faces: HSAs evaluated them positively, but reacted to them with avoidance.
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