Of all compared species human eyes have the highest width to height ratio and the highest index of exposed sclera size. Kobayashi and Kohshima ( 1997, 2001) compared the eyes of a large number of primates and found that the morphology of the human eye is rather unique. The most obvious cue lies in the eye itself. Yet, humans sometimes find eye contact uncomfortable, for example if a stranger keeps staring at them.ĭifferent sources of information are taken into account when processing gaze direction. (2002) found that infants as young as 2 days old prefer to look at faces that gazed directly at them compared to faces with averted gaze. A preference for direct gaze seems to be present at a very early age: Farroni et al. Humans in contrast often associate mutual gaze with positive interest, such as love and attraction. Most mammals generally interpret direct gaze as threatening or as a sign of dominance. Next, biases in the perception of other individuals’ gaze in social anxiety will be reviewed with a focus on: (a) whether mutual gaze is more readily perceived and (b) whether mutual gaze is avoided and perceived as threatening. Here, we review studies with clinical and non-clinical socially anxious samples on self-referential and threat-related biases in the perception of mutual gaze.įirst, mutual gaze perception in healthy human beings will be discussed. Biases in the self-referential perception of gaze directions, for instance, might more easily elicit feelings of mutual gaze and being the center of attention, which then will activate fears of being scrutinized by others. This is particularly surprising since individuals with SAD experience intense feelings of being looked at by other individuals and show a marked avoidance and fear of eye contact during social interactions ( Schneier et al., 2011b). Relatively little attention, however, has been paid to biases in gaze perception. More specifically, studies show that socially anxious individuals have attentional biases in the processing of negative, rejection-related cues ( Bar-Haim et al., 2007) and interpret ambiguous social situations as more threatening and negative than healthy controls (e.g., Stopa and Clark, 2000 Beard and Amir, 2009). Theoretical models highlight the importance of cognitive biases in the processing of ambiguous or negative cues during social interactions for the etiology and/or maintenance of social anxiety ( Rapee and Heimberg, 1997 Clark and Mcmanus, 2002). Hallmark characteristics are intense fear and avoidance of being evaluated or criticized resulting in extreme discomfort and self-consciousness in everyday social situations ( American Psychological Association, 2000). Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the most common mental disorders with a lifetime prevalence of up to 12% in Western countries ( Fehm et al., 2005 Kessler et al., 2005). ![]() Prospects for future research and clinical implications are discussed. Relative to controls, socially anxious individuals exhibit an enhanced self-directed perception of gaze directions and demonstrate a pronounced fear of direct eye contact, though findings are less consistent regarding the avoidance of mutual gaze in SAD. In this article we first discuss gaze perception in healthy human beings before reviewing self-referential and threat-related biases of gaze perception in clinical and non-clinical socially anxious samples. Experimental research has yet paid relatively little attention to the study of gaze perception in SAD. ![]() 3Center for Cognition, Learning and Memory, University of Bern, Bern, SwitzerlandĬlinical observations suggest abnormal gaze perception to be an important indicator of social anxiety disorder (SAD). ![]() 2Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.1Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.Lars Schulze 1,*, Babette Renneberg 1 and Janek S.
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