Emotional bias of trait anxiety on pre-attentive processing of facial expressions: ERP investigation

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2022.00001

Abstract

Abstract:

In order to explore the processing mode of emotional stimuli in the pre-attentive stage of people with high trait anxiety and clarify their emotional bias characteristics, this study used the deviant-standard-reverse oddball paradigm to explore the influence of trait anxiety on the pre-attentive processing of facial expressions. The results showed that for the low trait anxiety group, the early EMMN induced by sad faces was significantly larger than that induced by happy faces, while for the high trait anxiety group, the early EMMN induced by happy and sad faces was not significantly different from each other. Moreover, the EMMN amplitude of happy faces in high trait anxiety group was significantly larger than that in low trait anxiety group. The results show that personality traits are an important factor affecting the pre-attentive processing of facial expressions. Different from ordinary participants, people with high trait anxiety have similar processing patterns for happy and sad faces in the pre-attentive stage, which may make it difficult for them to effectively distinguish happy and sad faces.

Key words: trait anxiety, pre-attentive processing, facial expressions, EMMN

LI Wanyue, LIU Shen, HAN Shangfeng, ZHANG Lin, XU Qiang. (2022). Emotional bias of trait anxiety on pre-attentive processing of facial expressions: ERP investigation. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 54(1), 1-11.

Figures/Tables 3

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