| Abstract |
| Individuals with high social anxiety (HSA) exhibit an excessive bias toward socially threatening stimuli. The purpose of this study is to identify attentional bias patterns toward threat stimuli in people with HSA (but not those with social anxiety disorder, SAD). Furthermore, our goal was to investigate neural biomarkers that can predict these attentional bias patterns in people with HSA. We collected and analyzed behavioral data on attentional bias patterns, anxiety levels, social anxiety levels, and the frontal region theta/beta ratio using an electroencephalogram (EEG) from 33 neurotypical female adults. For analysis, we divide participants into two categories: (1) HSA and (2) low social anxiety (LSA). The results showed that both the HSA and LSA groups had an initial attentional bias toward emotional faces, but only the HSA group had a prolonged attentional bias toward angry faces. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation was found between the attentional bias score and the social anxiety score. Additionally, a decreased theta/beta ratio significantly explained the degree of attention bias in the HSA group and was a significant predictor of attentional bias in this group. Overall, this study finds that individuals with HSA exhibit similar patterns of attentional bias to those found in patients with SAD, as identified in previous research. Moreover, the findings suggest that a decreased frontal theta/beta ratio is associated with excessive attentional biases in HSA individuals. These findings contribute to our understanding of the behavioral and neurological pathophysiology associated with high levels of social anxiety, potentially assisting in the development of appropriate evaluation methods and the determination of the effect of the treatment intervention. |
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| Key Words |
| Attentional Bias, EEG, Facial Emotions, Social Anxiety, Theta, Beta Ratio, 주의 편향, 뇌파, 얼굴 정서, 사회 불안, 세타, 베타비 |
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