The Effect Of Facial Expression On Eye Gaze Direction Perception In Anxiety

Facial expression and eye gaze direction play an important role in social communication.Previous research has demonstrated the perception of angry is enhanced by the direct gaze,but the perception of fearful is enhanced by the averted gaze or not is unclear.In addition,previous research has showed the anxiety level of participants affect the processing of facial expression and eye gaze direction,but they didn't measure or match the depression scores.So it is still hard to come to the conclusion that the effect of individual differences on face expression and gaze direction is due to the characteristics of anxiety or depression.The current study attempted to reexamine the effect of the anxiety level on the processing of facial expression and gaze direction by matching the depression scores.A reliable psychophysical index of the range of eye gaze angles judged as being directed at oneself(Cone of Direct Gaze: Co DG)was used as the dependent variable in this study.Participants were stratified into high/low anxiety groups and asked to judge the gaze of angry,fearful and neutral faces across a range of gaze directions(-9,-6,-3,0,3,6,9).The result showed: 1)the perception of eye gaze direction was influenced by facial expression.The Co DG for angry was wider than neutral.2)the anxiety modulated the effect of facial expression on the perception of gaze direction.For high anxiety group,the Co DG for angry was wider than fearful and neutral,no significant difference between fearful and neutral;For low anxiety group,the Co DG for angry and fearful were both wider than neutral,and no significant difference between angry and fearful.There was significant difference between high anxiety group and low anxiety group only in the fearful condition,the fearful Co DG for high anxiety group was narrower than low anxiety group.These findings show anxiety have different effect on the gaze perception of the difference threat expression(angry,fearful),high anxiety level enhanced the response of indirectly threat expression(fearful),and have no influence on the response of directly threat expression(angry).The findings partly support the shared signal hypothesis.