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. 2023 May 19:17:1135909.
doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1135909. eCollection 2023.

Eye movements and ERP biomarkers for face processing problems in avoidant attachment-style individuals

Simeng Gu #  1 , Yao Jiang #  2 , Mei Liu #  2 , Yumeng Li  1 , Yuan Liang  2 , Rou Feng  2 , Minghong Xu  3 , Fushun Wang  2 , Jason H Huang  4   5
Affiliations

Eye movements and ERP biomarkers for face processing problems in avoidant attachment-style individuals

Simeng Gu et al. Front Behav Neurosci. .

Abstract

Background: Avoidant attachment poses a serious risk to intimate relationships and offspring. However, there are few studies on the face-processing characteristics and impairments of avoidant individuals based on basic emotion theory. Therefore, this study investigated the issues of emotional processing and deactivation strategies in individuals with avoidant attachment.

Methods: Avoidant and secure individuals were recruited to participate in an eye-tracking experiment and a two-choice oddball task in which they had to distinguish facial expressions of basic emotions (sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and neutral). Eye fixation durations to various parts of the face, including the eyes, nose, and mouth, were measured, and three event-related potentials (ERP) components (P100, N170, and P300) were monitored.

Results: Avoidant individuals could not process facial expressions as easily as secure individuals. Avoidant individuals focused less on the eyes of angry faces when compared to secure individuals. They also exhibited a more positive P100 component and a less negative N170 component when processing faces and a larger amplitude of the P300 component than secure individuals when processing emotional expressions.

Conclusion: Avoidant individuals use deactivating strategies and exhibit specific characteristics at different stages, which are of great significance in social interaction.

Keywords: ERP; MDD; avoidant attachment; deactivating strategies; eye-tracking; facial expressions.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Experimental procedure. (A) Task for Experiment 1. Participants were asked to click a button using the mouse to describe the emotion shown on the screen: “sadness” (up), “disgust” (right), “anger” (down), “fear” (left), or “neutral” (center) (Wang and Luo, 2005; Gong et al., 2011). (B) Task for Experiment 2. Participants were asked to respond to facial expressions by pressing “f” (negative) and “j” (neutral). (C) Examples of the emotional faces (sadness, anger, fear, and disgust) and neutral faces presented in both experiments.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Eye movements. (A) Response time of avoidant individuals and secure individuals; (B) Response accuracy of avoidant individuals and secure individuals; (C) Effects of attachment types and emotional faces on fixation duration; (D) Effects of attachment types and AOIs on fixation duration. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.001; ns, no significance.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Topographic maps of ERP components. Topographic maps of the occipital P100, the lateral occipital N170, and the parietal P300 components in negative (sadness, anger, fear, and disgust) and neutral conditions during the time windows of 50–100 ms (P100), 160–210 ms (N170), and 300–500 ms (P300).
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Characteristics of ERP in different attachments. (A) Response time of avoidant and secure individuals; (B) Response accuracy of avoidant and secure individuals; (C) P100 components of avoidant and secure individuals at O1; (D) P100 components of avoidant and secure individuals at O2. *p < 0.05.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
N170 and P300 components. (A) N170 and P300 components of avoidant and secure individuals at P7; (B) N170 and P300 components of avoidant and secure individuals at P8; (C) N170 and P300 components of avoidant and secure individuals at PO7; (D) N170 and P300 components of avoidant and secure individuals at PO8.
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Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Number: 82101602).