Internal and external attention in speech anxiety

Cognitive models of social phobia propose that socially anxious individuals engage in heightened self-focused attention. Evidence for this assumption was provided by dot probe and feedback tasks measuring attention and reactions to internal cues. However, it is unclear whether similar patterns of attentional processing can be revealed while participants actually engage in a social situation. The current study used a novel paradigm, simultaneously measuring attention to internal and external stimuli in anticipation of and during a speech task.

Participants with speech anxiety and non-anxious controls were asked to press a button in response to external or internal probes, while giving a speech on a controversial topic in front of an audience. The external probe consisted of a LED attached to the head of one spectator and the internal probe was a light vibration, which ostensibly signaled changes in participants' pulse or skin conductance.

The results indicate that during speech anticipation, high speech anxious participants responded significantly faster to internal probes than low speech anxious participants, while during the speech no differences were revealed between internal and external probes.

Generalization of our results is restricted to speech anxious individuals.

Our results provide support for the pivotal role of self-focused attention in anticipatory social anxiety. Furthermore, they provide a new framework for understanding interaction effects of internal and external attention in anticipation of and during actual social situations.