Supplementary data for the paper 'Loneliness, personality, and attention to AI-generated images depicting social threat: An eye-tracking study'

DOI:10.4121/b02ace68-8e95-4355-bcea-f073c52e8a14.v1
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DOI: 10.4121/b02ace68-8e95-4355-bcea-f073c52e8a14

Datacite citation style

Pfeifer, Jenna; de Winter, Joost; Dodou, Dimitra; Eisma, Yke Bauke (2025): Supplementary data for the paper 'Loneliness, personality, and attention to AI-generated images depicting social threat: An eye-tracking study'. Version 1. 4TU.ResearchData. dataset. https://doi.org/10.4121/b02ace68-8e95-4355-bcea-f073c52e8a14.v1
Other citation styles (APA, Harvard, MLA, Vancouver, Chicago, IEEE) available at Datacite

Dataset

Attention bias towards social threat has been linked to loneliness and anxiety, though findings are mixed and concerns about measurement reliability persist. This study examined whether state and trait loneliness, along with personality, self-esteem, social anxiety, and life satisfaction, are associated with attention bias towards social threat images (indicating rejection or exclusion) in young adults (N = 241). AI-generated images were used to enhance control over stimulus content and category distinction. Participants completed an eye-tracking free-viewing task comprising 40 image matrices (four images per matrix, displayed for 6000 ms) and attention bias (dwell time percentage, total fixation duration percentage, and fixation count percentage) and initial orientation of attention (first fixation percentage) were computed. The attention bias measures showed adequate to good internal consistency (α = 0.61–0.86). No significant associations emerged between loneliness and attention to socially threatening stimuli, suggesting that heightened vigilance to social threat may not be a feature of loneliness in non-clinical young adults. However, it was found that females exhibited greater attention to social positive images, and baseline pupil diameter was associated with social anxiety. Future research should assess whether loneliness-specific attention bias is a replicable phenomenon, ideally by using an extreme-sampling approach with very lonely individuals.

History

  • 2025-08-26 first online, published, posted

Publisher

4TU.ResearchData

Format

script/m; data/xlsx; data/mat; results/xlsx; images/png; video/mp4; questionnaire/pdf; software/EyeLink proprietary files

Funding

  • Disconnected: Assessing the Effects of Technology on Youth Loneliness (grant code NWA.1572.21.012) Dutch Research Council (NWO)

Organizations

TU Delft, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Cognitive Robotics
TU Delft, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Department of BioMechanical Engineering

DATA

Files (2)