Visualizing mental representations of facial expressions in anxiety: Suggestion for attentional guidance from mental image.

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K21518
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Clinical psychology; Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: Kansai University
• Principal Investigator: Moriya Jun 関西大学, 社会学部, 准教授 (70707562)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 不安 / 社交不安 / 心的イメージ / 可視化 / 顔表情 / 注意 / ワーキングメモリ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The present study investigated the ability of mental imagery and visualization of mental image. The result showed that social anxiety was positively correlated with the object imagery scale, which concerns the ability to construct pictorial images of individual objects. Anxious individual would use not verbal but visual processing for mental image. Visualized mental representations of self-image were evaluated, and results indicated that self-image in highly anxious individuals decreased social desirability. Other experiments investigated attentional guidance from mental imagery. Participants were instructed to visualize a color or an object clearly associated with a specific color, after which they were asked to detect a colored target in a visual-search task. The results indicated that visual mental imagery guided attention toward imagery-matching stimuli. This attentional guidance was also observed when participants visualized emotional representations of a face.

Free Research Field

異常心理学