Attention bias during processing of facial expressions in trait anxiety: An eye-tracking study

Behavior research indicates that Personality may affect facial expression processing. 36 participants were taken into high or low trait anxiety groups (HTA, LTA, in short), the current study probed the eye movement characteristics of anxiety participants by using Tobii120 eye-tracker. The results showed that, (1) recognition time of individuals in HTA group was smaller than that of LTA group significantly, and pupils sizes of former were bigger than those of latter significantly in expression of surprise and contemn. (2) fixation start-points of individuals in HTA group for different expressions were different, mostly located at nose and eyes; path of shape during processing mostly were the shape of Arabic numeral 7. (3) pupils sizes and recognition time for all participants differed among expressions. It suggested that individuals in HTA group were more sensitive to negative facial expressions in social and biological meaning, and had specific eye-movement characteristics and path of processing shape was mostly Arabic numeral 7.