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However, the relative influence of positive versus negative expressions on distinct subprocesses of attention and perception remains unclear. This event-related potential (ERP) study investigates the temporal dynamics of electrophysiological responses to emotional faces in high (HSA; N\u2009=\u200956) or low (LSA; N\u2009=\u200947) social anxiety individuals using a dot-probe task. Four face pairs (angry-neutral, happy-neutral, angry-happy, and neutral-neutral) were presented to probe the influence of positive and negative expressions. While behavioural results showed no significant group differences in attention bias, ERP results showed a reduced N170 amplitude for the HSA vs. LSA group in angry-neutral, happy-neutral, and angry-happy face pairs. Furthermore, enhanced N2pc effects to emotional expressions were found only in the HSA group when angry-neutral and happy-neutral face pairs were presented. No N2pc effect emerged when both positive and negative expressions were presented simultaneously. Finally, no significant P1 effect was found. Together, both positive and negative expressions influenced attentional deployment and face-specific processing in relation to social anxiety. Socially anxious individuals perceived less emotional facial information, yet their attention was biased by both negative and positive expressions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0337403","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,19]],"date-time":"2025-11-19T18:29:22Z","timestamp":1763576962000},"page":"e0337403","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Temporal dynamics of emotional face processing in social anxiety"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6032-8022","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Ya-Chun","family":"Feng","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1302-5795","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Bo-Cheng","family":"Kuo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Wen-Yau","family":"Hsu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0337403.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1176\/appi.books.9780890425596","volume-title":"Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders","author":"American Psychiatric Association","year":"2013","edition":"5"},{"key":"pone.0337403.ref002","volume-title":"Anxiety disorders and phobias: a cognitive perspective","author":"AT Beck","year":"1985"},{"issue":"7","key":"pone.0337403.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"827","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cpr.2004.06.005","article-title":"Attention processes in the maintenance and treatment of social phobia: hypervigilance, avoidance and self-focused attention","volume":"24","author":"SM B\u00f6gels","year":"2004","journal-title":"Clin Psychol Rev"},{"issue":"7","key":"pone.0337403.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"799","DOI":"10.1016\/j.brat.2008.03.011","article-title":"Affective primes suppress attention bias to threat in socially anxious individuals","volume":"46","author":"SM Helfinstein","year":"2008","journal-title":"Behav Res Ther"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0337403.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"283","DOI":"10.1080\/10615800802449602","article-title":"Examination of vigilance and disengagement of threat in social anxiety with a probe detection task","volume":"22","author":"H Klumpp","year":"2009","journal-title":"Anxiety Stress Coping"},{"key":"pone.0337403.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"40","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jbtep.2015.04.009","article-title":"What does the facial dot-probe task tell us about attentional processes in social anxiety? 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