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Grant support

This research was supported by the National Research and Development Agency, Chile (ANID-FONDECYT REGULAR-1200326) granted to German Galvez-Garcia. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or manuscript preparation.

Analysis of institutional authors

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June 30, 2023
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Facial infrared thermography as an index of social anxiety

Publicated to:ANXIETY STRESS AND COPING. 1-13 - 2023-04-07 (), DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2023.2199209

Authors: Fernández, J; Albayay, J; Gálvez-García, G; Iborra, O; Huertas, C; Gómez-Milán, E; Caballo, VE

Affiliations

Univ Granada, Ctr Invest Mente Cerebro & Comportamiento, Granada, Spain - Author
Univ La Frontera, Dept Psicol, Temuco, Chile - Author
Univ Salamanca, Fac Psicol, Dept Psicol Bas Psicobiol & Metodol Ciencias Comp, Salamanca, Spain - Author
Univ Trento, Ctr Interdipartimentale Mente Cervello, Rovereto, Italy - Author
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Abstract

Previous research on physiological indices of social anxiety has offered unclear results. In this study, participants with low and high social anxiety performed five social interaction tasks while being recorded with a thermal camera. Each task was associated with a dimension assessed by the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Adults (1 = Interactions with strangers. 2 = Speaking in public/Talking with people in authority, 3 = Criticism and embarrassment, 4 = Assertive expression of annoyance, disgust or displeasure, 5 = Interactions with the opposite sex). Mixed-effects models revealed that the temperature of the tip of the nose decreased significantly in participants with low (vs. high) social anxiety (p < 0.001), while no significant differences were found in other facial regions of interest: forehead (p = 0.999) and cheeks (p = 0.999). Furthermore, task 1 was the most effective at discriminating between the thermal change of the nose tip and social anxiety, with a trend for a higher nose temperature in participants with high social anxiety and a lower nose temperature for the low social anxiety group. We emphasize the importance of corroborating thermography with specific tasks as an ecological method, and tip of the nose thermal change as a psychophysiological index associated with social anxiety.

Keywords

facial temperaturephysiological reactivitysocial anxietyEmotionFaceFacial temperatureFightFlightPhysiological reactivityQuestionnaireSocial anxietyTemperatureThermography

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal ANXIETY STRESS AND COPING due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2023, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Arts and Humanities (Miscellaneous). Notably, the journal is positioned above the 90th percentile.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from the Field Citation Ratio (FCR) of the Dimensions source, it yields a value of: 2.68, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: Dimensions Oct 2025)

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-10-10:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 15.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 14 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 1.5.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 2 (Altmetric).

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Chile; Italy.