Characterizing the time course of automatic action tendencies to affective facial expressions and its dysregulation in social anxiety disorder.

ABSTRACT: Affective facial expressions elicit automatic approach or avoidance action tendencies, which are dysregulated in Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). However, research has not dissociated the initiation and execution phases of automatic action tendencies, which may be distinctly modulated by affective faces and SAD. In Study 1, fifty adults completed a modified Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) that characterized the time course of automatic approach or avoidance actions elicited by affective faces. In the initiation phase, happy faces elicited greater automatic approach tendencies compared to angry faces, an effect that linearly weakened across the execution phase. In Study 2, 44 adults with a principal diagnosis of SAD and 22 healthy comparison (HC) adults completed a similar AAT. Compared to the

SUBMITTER: Evans TC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7940588 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature