Gender discrimination task: eye movements
Whole face area. Recording of eye movements did not show any significant between-group differences in ocular exploration of different emotional expressions (all p's>0.1).
Eyes vs mouth—gaze maintenance. In the emotion × intensity × ROI × group ANOVA analyzing gaze maintenance over different areas of the facial expressions, a significant ROI (eyes vs mouth) × group (High vs Low Ns) interaction was present (F(1,42)=10.328, p=0.003; Table 1). This showed that High Ns spent less time gazing at the eyes region and more at the mouth region of faces compared with Low Ns (eyes ROI: F(1,42)=4.949, p=0.032; mouth ROI: F(1,42)=10.190, p=0.003; Figure 1).
Correlations with behavioral performance and affect ratings. Correlation analysis between gaze parameters and affect ratings before testing revealed a significant negative correlation between self-ratings of hostility on VAS and gaze maintenance over the eye region of both happy (R=−0.598, p=0.007) and fearful faces (R=−0.640, p=0.002) in the High Ns group.