Social anxiety and eye contact - effects of social threat in social phobia and autism

Contact: Gregor Domes
In cooperation with the University of Freiburg, Markus Heinrichs

The eye region is an essential source of social information. The eyes of an interlocutor encode, among other things, his or her affective and mental state. Adequate eye contact seems to be an indicator of intact social skills, whereas inadequate eye contact is a common feature of social interaction disorders, such as social phobia and autism spectrum disorders. Depending on the perceived social-evaluative threat, the current body of research suggests different eye contact behaviors in the two clinical groups. With the help of two temporally synchronized eye-trackers, the eye movements of two interlocutors are quantitatively measured in a naturalistic, everyday setting under different social threat, and psychophysiological indicators of emotional reactions (EDR, HRV, facial expressions) are collected. The description of the dynamics of dyadic eye contact, which is possible for the first time, aims at a better understanding of non-verbal interaction deficits in social anxiety disorders and autism spectrum disorders, promises conclusions on disorder-specific pathogenesis and could provide clues for differential diagnostics.

  • Tönsing, D., Schiller, B., Vehlen, A., Spenthof, I., Domes, G., & Heinrichs, M. (2022). No evidence that gaze anxiety predicts gaze avoidance behavior during face-to-face social interaction. Scientific Reports, 12(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-25189-z
  • Vehlen, A., Spenthof, I., Tönsing, D., Heinrichs, M., & Domes, G. (2021). Evaluation of an eye tracking setup for studying visual attention in face-to-face conversations. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 2661. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81987-x
  • Vehlen, A., Standard, W., & Domes, G. (2022). How to choose the size of facial areas of interest in interactive eye tracking. PLOS ONE, 17(2), e0263594. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263594