Avoidance of all feedback? Attention allocation during and after public speech in social anxiety

Attention avoidance of feedback-related stimuli is proposed to be associated with and maintain social anxiety. However, previous research has mainly focused on comparing the attention bias between two types of stimuli, while little is known about attention distribution patterns among positive, neutral, and negative feedback and non-feedback stimuli in individuals with high trait social anxiety (HSA) or low trait social anxiety (LSA).

The current study assessed eye movement pattern of participants with HSA or LSA during a speech task (high anxiety condition) or while solely watching audience feedback of the speech (low anxiety condition). A pre-recorded audience who displayed approving, neutral, or disapproving gestures was presented as feedback stimuli, while neutral facial photos were used as non-feedback stimuli.

Only in the high anxiety condition, participants with HSA exhibited longer total fixation on non-feedback stimuli compared to those with LSA; whereas in the low anxiety condition, both groups paid more attention to emotional feedback stimuli.

The final sample size was modest due to a high suspicion rate of the reality of the audience.

These findings suggest that only in highly anxious social situations, socially anxious individuals lack the attentional preference toward positive feedback that individuals with low anxious have.