Individuals attention bias in perceived loneliness: an ERP study

Abstract

Purpose: Loneliness refers to an unhappy or depressed negative emotion in which individuals feel poor intimacy in quantity or quality in current social relationships. It is not only common among the elderly, but also widely among young adults. In this study, we investigated the effects of loneliness on visual attention of social and non-social stimuli. Materials and Methods: Here, two different category judgments (emo-tions and buildings) were separately used to investigate the cognitive differences of individuals with loneliness when faced different (social and non-social) stimulus. Mixed design variance analysis was used to analyze the behavioral differences between the lonely group and the non-lonely group, and ERP technology was used to analyze the brain activity differences between the lonely group and the non-lonely group during the experiment. Results: Finally, Results showed that not only the behavioral response of lonely individuals to negative emotions was significantly faster than non-lonely individuals, but also the N170 latency was significantly shorter, and the amplitude of left hemisphere P100 was significantly higher. These findings indicated that lonely individuals had attentional bias for negative emotions. This bias was manifested as early attention enhancement and middle attention alertness.