Eye-movement methodology reveals a shift in attention from threat to neutral stimuli with self-reported symptoms of social anxiety across children, adolescents and adults

The current study used an eye-movement remote distractor paradigm (RDP) to examine the relationship between self-reported symptoms of social anxiety in children (9–11-year-olds), young adolescents (12–14-year-olds) and adults (18–43-year-olds) on saccade latencies to identify a target and saccadic errors to task irrelevant distractor (angry, neutral and happy faces). Distractors were presented simultaneously, either at the centre of the display, or at a contralateral parafoveal or peripheral location to the target. Symptoms of social anxiety in children were associated with increased saccade latencies in the presence of angry and neutral faces suggesting avoidance of these emotion expressions in this age group. Symptoms of social anxiety in adolescents and adults were respectively linked with longer latencies for neutral faces, indicating that neutral faces represent ambiguous and potentially negative stimuli for individuals with elevated social anxiety, and fit with research that has questioned the role of neutral faces as non-emotional control stimuli in attention research and anxiety.