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The present study investigated whether oculomotor behavior is influenced by attachment styles. The Relationship Scales Questionnaire was used to assess attachment styles of forty-eight voluntary university students and to classify them into attachment groups (secure, preoccupied, fearful, and dismissing). Eye-tracking was recorded while participants engaged in a 3-seconds free visual exploration of stimuli presenting either a positive or a negative picture together with a neutral picture, all depicting social interactions. The task consisted in identifying whether the two pictures depicted the same emotion. Results showed that the processing of negative pictures was impermeable to attachment style, while the processing of positive pictures was significantly influenced by individual differences in insecure attachment. The groups highly avoidant regarding to attachment (dismissing and fearful) showed reduced accuracy, suggesting a higher threshold for recognizing positive emotions compared to the secure group. The groups with higher attachment anxiety (preoccupied and fearful) showed differences in automatic capture of attention, in particular an increased delay preceding the first fixation to a picture of positive emotional valence. Despite lenient statistical thresholds induced by the limited sample size of some groups (p < 0.05 uncorrected for multiple comparisons), the current findings suggest that the processing of positive emotions is affected by attachment styles. These results are discussed within a broader evolutionary framework. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show a lack of motivation to engage in spontaneous social encounters with other human beings. However, the basis for these diminished approach-related social behaviours is still unclear. This study investigated social motivation in ASD using an approach-avoidance task. In particular, we presented a group of ASD and a group of neurotypical adolescents with a series of emotionally positive, negative, and neutral visual stimuli, comprised of real photographs and cartoons - a stimulus with incentive salience for individuals with ASD. Participants were asked to either push or pull a joystick in response to an emotionally independent feature of the stimuli (colour frame). Following the main task, participants also rated the stimuli for affective valence and arousal. Results showed a dissociation in motivational responses towards positive stimuli for the ASD group only: faster avoidance from positive real photographs, but greater approach to positive cartoons, while no differences were found between emotionally negative or neutral stimuli. By contrast, no differences between the groups were found for the self-reported affective ratings. In light of the social motivation hypothesis, these atypical motivational responses suggest a deficit in assigning reward to socio-emotional stimuli in adolescents with ASD. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion