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Unconscious Processing of Facial Expressions in Individuals with Internet Gaming Disorder

Overview of attention for article published in Frontiers in Psychology, June 2017
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Title
Unconscious Processing of Facial Expressions in Individuals with Internet Gaming Disorder
Published in
Frontiers in Psychology, June 2017
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01059
Pubmed ID
Authors

Xiaozhe Peng, Fang Cui, Ting Wang, Can Jiao

Abstract

Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) is characterized by impairments in social communication and the avoidance of social contact. Facial expression processing is the basis of social communication. However, few studies have investigated how individuals with IGD process facial expressions, and whether they have deficits in emotional facial processing remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to explore these two issues by investigating the time course of emotional facial processing in individuals with IGD. A backward masking task was used to investigate the differences between individuals with IGD and normal controls (NC) in the processing of subliminally presented facial expressions (sad, happy, and neutral) with event-related potentials (ERPs). The behavioral results showed that individuals with IGD are slower than NC in response to both sad and neutral expressions in the sad-neutral context. The ERP results showed that individuals with IGD exhibit decreased amplitudes in ERP component N170 (an index of early face processing) in response to neutral expressions compared to happy expressions in the happy-neutral expressions context, which might be due to their expectancies for positive emotional content. The NC, on the other hand, exhibited comparable N170 amplitudes in response to both happy and neutral expressions in the happy-neutral expressions context, as well as sad and neutral expressions in the sad-neutral expressions context. Both individuals with IGD and NC showed comparable ERP amplitudes during the processing of sad expressions and neutral expressions. The present study revealed that individuals with IGD have different unconscious neutral facial processing patterns compared with normal individuals and suggested that individuals with IGD may expect more positive emotion in the happy-neutral expressions context. • The present study investigated whether the unconscious processing of facial expressions is influenced by excessive online gaming. A validated backward masking paradigm was used to investigate whether individuals with Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) and normal controls (NC) exhibit different patterns in facial expression processing.• The results demonstrated that individuals with IGD respond differently to facial expressions compared with NC on a preattentive level. Behaviorally, individuals with IGD are slower than NC in response to both sad and neutral expressions in the sad-neutral context. The ERP results further showed (1) decreased amplitudes in the N170 component (an index of early face processing) in individuals with IGD when they process neutral expressions compared with happy expressions in the happy-neutral expressions context, whereas the NC exhibited comparable N170 amplitudes in response to these two expressions; (2) both the IGD and NC group demonstrated similar N170 amplitudes in response to sad and neutral faces in the sad-neutral expressions context.• The decreased amplitudes of N170 to neutral faces than happy faces in individuals with IGD might due to their less expectancies for neutral content in the happy-neutral expressions context, while individuals with IGD may have no different expectancies for neutral and sad faces in the sad-neutral expressions context.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 62 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 62 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 12 19%
Student > Master 9 15%
Student > Bachelor 7 11%
Student > Postgraduate 5 8%
Researcher 4 6%
Other 10 16%
Unknown 15 24%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 26 42%
Medicine and Dentistry 5 8%
Social Sciences 4 6%
Neuroscience 3 5%
Nursing and Health Professions 2 3%
Other 8 13%
Unknown 14 23%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 July 2017.
All research outputs
#17,898,929
of 22,979,862 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Psychology
#20,685
of 30,150 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#226,540
of 316,268 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Psychology
#492
of 635 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,979,862 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 19th percentile – i.e., 19% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 30,150 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.5. This one is in the 25th percentile – i.e., 25% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 635 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 17th percentile – i.e., 17% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.