Enhanced orienting of attention in response to emotional gaze cues after oxytocin administration in healthy young men
Open accessAbstract
Background Oxytocin is known to enhance recognition of emotional expressions and may increase attention to the eye region. Therefore, we investigated whether oxytocin administration would lead to increased orienting of attention in response to gaze cues of emotional faces.Methods In a randomized placebo-controlled double-blind crossover study 20 healthy males received 24 IU of oxytocin or placebo. Thirty-five minutes after administration they performed a gaze cueing task with happy, fearful and neutral faces. Stress levels were measured throughout the study.Results Oxytocin did not affect stress levels during the study, but significantly increased gaze cueing scores for happy and fearful expressions compared to placebo. No effects were found for neutral expressions. Trait anxiety or depression did not moderate the effect.Conclusions Oxytocin increases orienting of attention in response to emotional gaze cues, both for happy and fearful expressions. Replication is needed in female and clinical populations. Effects of oxytocin on early, automatic processing levels should be studied in relation to previously found pro-social and behavioral effects of oxytocin.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
IN-OXT has been shown in an increasing number of studies to change social visual attention in non-clinical populations of humans.
“IN-OXT has also been shown in an increasing number of studies to change social visual attention in non-clinical populations of humans77–81.”
From Effect of age and autism spectrum disorder on oxytocin receptor density in the human basal forebrain and midbrain (2018) · cites this paper as [78]
Evidence from behavioural studies in humans and nonhuman primates indicates that intranasal oxytocin can alter social visual attention.
“Although the central OXTR distribution in NHP may or may not be predictive of that of humans, given the remarkable species differences in receptor distribution, evidence is building from behavioural studies in both humans (76) and NHP that IN-OT is capable of altering social visual attention.”
From Comparative Perspectives on Oxytocin and Vasopressin Receptor Research in Rodents and Primates: Translational Implications (2016) · cites this paper as [76]
Oxytocin has been shown to increase attention to objects that are the gaze targets of static faces.
“and also to increase attention to objects that are the gaze targets of static faces (Tollenaar, Chatzimanoli, van der Wee, & Putman, 2013).”
From Oxytocin increases attention to the eyes and selectively enhances self-reported affective empathy for fear (2017) · cites this paper as Tollenaar, Chatzimanoli, van der Wee, & Putman, 2013
Oxytocin has been found to increase attention and approach toward fearful facial expressions.
“OXT has also been found to increase attention and approach towards fearful facial expressions (Clark-Elford et al., 2015;Tollenaar et al., 2013).”
From Oxytocin increases attention to the eyes and selectively enhances self-reported affective empathy for fear (2017) · cites this paper as Tollenaar et al., 2013
Intranasal oxytocin has been found to increase attention and approach towards negative social-emotional stimuli, such as angry and fearful facial expressions.
“Additionally, intranasal oxytocin has also been found to increase attention and approach towards negative social-emotional stimuli, such as angry and fearful facial expressions (Clark-Elford et al., 2015;Simon et al., 2012;Tollenaar et al., 2013).”
From Meta-analysis of the effects of intranasal oxytocin on interpretation and expression of emotions (2017) · cites this paper as Tollenaar et al., 2013
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
(1970) · Cited by 24,983 · see citing works
Ekman, P. (1976) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 4,345 · see citing works
The eyes have it: the neuroethology, function and evolution of social gaze
Emery, N. J. (2000) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/s0149-7634(00)00025-7 · Cited by 2,037 · see citing works
Oxytocin and vasopressin in the human brain: social neuropeptides for translational medicine
Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Domes, G., Kirsch, P., & Heinrichs, M. (2011) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn3044 · Cited by 1,688 · see citing works
Social effects of oxytocin in humans: context and person matter
Bartz, J. A., Zaki, J., Bolger, N., & Ochsner, K. N. (2011) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.002 · Cited by 1,572 · cited 1× · see citing works
“These results are in line with the views that oxytocin increases social salience (for discussions see Bartz et al., 2011; Kemp and Guastella, 2011), and that it enhances the processing of (emotional) information already at an early stage (see also Schulze et al., 2011; Domes et al., 2012a;…”
Oxytocin improves “mind-reading” in humans
Domes, G., Heinrichs, M., Michel, A., Berger, C., & Herpertz, S. C. (2007) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2006.07.015 · Cited by 1,298 · see citing works
Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces
Lundqvist, D., Flykt, A., & Ohman, A. (2015) · PsycTESTS Dataset · doi:10.1037/t27732-000 · Cited by 859 · see citing works
Oxytocin, vasopressin, and human social behavior
Heinrichs, M., von Dawans, B., & Domes, G. (2009) · Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2009.05.005 · Cited by 799 · see citing works
Oxytocin increases gaze to the eye region of human faces
Guastella, A. J., Mitchell, P. B., & Dadds, M. R. (2008) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2007.06.026 · Cited by 798 · see citing works
Effects of intranasal oxytocin on emotional face processing in women
Domes, G., Lischke, A., Berger, C., Grossmann, A., Hauenstein, K., Heinrichs, M., & Herpertz, S. C. (2010) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2009.06.016 · Cited by 521 · cited 3× · see citing works
“These effects are found in a healthy male population, and should be replicated in (sub)clinical populations and in females, as gender difference in the response to oxytocin have been found before (Domes et al., 2010; Lischke et al., 2012b).”
Different amygdala subregions mediate valence-related and attentional effects of oxytocin in humans
Gamer, M., Zurowski, B., & Büchel, C. (2010) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1000985107 · Cited by 487 · cited 1× · see citing works
“That is, Guastella et al. (2008a,b) found increased gaze behavior to neutral faces and Gamer et al. (2010) to neutral, happy and fearful expressions.”
Effects of Gaze on Amygdala Sensitivity to Anger and Fear Faces
Adams, R. B., Gordon, H. L., Baird, A. A., Ambady, N., & Kleck, R. E. (2003) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1082244 · Cited by 444 · see citing works
Bos, P. A., Panksepp, J., Bluthé, R.-M., & Honk, J. V. (2012) · Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2011.01.002 · Cited by 429 · see citing works
Van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J. (2012) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.07.008 · Cited by 365 · see citing works
Oxytocin enhances the encoding of positive social memories in humans.
Guastella, A. J., Mitchell, P. B., & Mathews, F. (2008) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.02.008 · Cited by 352 · see citing works
Oxytocin improves specific recognition of positive facial expressions
Marsh, A. A., Yu, H. H., Pine, D. S., & Blair, R. J. R. (2010) · Psychopharmacology · doi:10.1007/s00213-010-1780-4 · Cited by 321 · see citing works
Prosocial effects of oxytocin and clinical evidence for its therapeutic potential
Striepens, N., Kendrick, K. M., Maier, W., & Hurlemann, R. (2011) · Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2011.07.001 · Cited by 283 · see citing works
Oxytocin facilitates protective responses to aversive social stimuli in males
Striepens, N., Scheele, D., Kendrick, K. M., Becker, B., Schäfer, L., Schwalba, K., Reul, J., Maier, W., & Hurlemann, R. (2012) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1208852109 · Cited by 242 · see citing works
The Role of Oxytocin in Human Affect: A Novel Hypothesis
Kemp, A. H., & Guastella, A. J. (2011) · Current Directions in Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0963721411417547 · Cited by 228 · see citing works
Lischke, A., Berger, C., Prehn, K., Heinrichs, M., Herpertz, S. C., & Domes, G. (2012) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.07.015 · Cited by 221 · see citing works
Frewen, P., Dozois, D. J. A., Joanisse, M. F., & Neufeld, R. W. J. (2007) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2007.05.006 · Cited by 204 · see citing works
Oxytocin increases amygdala reactivity to threatening scenes in females
Lischke, A., Gamer, M., Berger, C., Grossmann, A., Hauenstein, K., Heinrichs, M., Herpertz, S. C., & Domes, G. (2012) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.01.011 · Cited by 194 · cited 3× · see citing works
“These effects are found in a healthy male population, and should be replicated in (sub)clinical populations and in females, as gender difference in the response to oxytocin have been found before (Domes et al., 2010; Lischke et al., 2012b).”
Oxytocin increases recognition of masked emotional faces
Schulze, L., Lischke, A., Greif, J., Herpertz, S. C., Heinrichs, M., & Domes, G. (2011) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.03.011 · Cited by 180 · see citing works
Emotional Stroop Performance for Masked Angry Faces: It's BAS, Not BIS.
Putman, P., Hermans, E. J., & van Honk, J. (2004) · Emotion · doi:10.1037/1528-3542.4.3.305 · Cited by 156 · see citing works
Self-citationOxytocin differentially modulates eye gaze to naturalistic social signals of happiness and anger
Domes, G., Steiner, A., Porges, S. W., & Heinrichs, M. (2013) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.10.002 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
Intranasal oxytocin increases covert attention to positive social cues
Domes, G., Sibold, M., Schulze, L., Lischke, A., Herpertz, S. C., & Heinrichs, M. (2013) · Psychological Medicine · doi:10.1017/s0033291712002565 · Cited by 130 · see citing works
Does oxytocin influence the early detection of angry and happy faces?
Guastella, A. J., Carson, D. S., Dadds, M. R., Mitchell, P. B., & Cox, R. E. (2008) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2008.09.001 · Cited by 114 · see citing works
Ellenbogen, M. A., Linnen, A., Grumet, R., Cardoso, C., & Joober, R. (2012) · Psychophysiology · doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.2011.01278.x · Cited by 82 · see citing works
Ellenbogen, M. A., Linnen, A.-M., Cardoso, C., & Joober, R. (2013) · Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.06.016 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Cortisol administration acutely reduces threat-selective spatial attention in healthy young men
Putman, P., Hermans, E. J., & van Honk, J. (2009) · Physiology & Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2009.11.006 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Lischke, A., Berger, C., Prehn, K., Heinrichs, M., Herpertz, S.C., Domes, G., 2012a. lntranasal oxytocin enhances emotion recog- nition from dynamic facial expressions and leaves eye-gaze unaf- fected. Psychoneuroendocrinology 37 (4), 475-481.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The Social Salience Hypothesis of Oxytocin
Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., & Abu-Akel, A. (2016) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.07.020 · Cited by 904 · see citing works
“Indeed, it has been suggested that OT elevates both the number of saccades towards the eye region (33, 74), enhances stimulus-induced pupil dilation (22), increases orienting of attention in response to emotional gaze cues (75), as well as attentional shifts towards happy facial expressions presented for 100 ms (76).”
Autism, oxytocin and interoception
Quattrocki, E., & Friston, K. (2014) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.09.012 · Cited by 393 · see citing works
Auyeung, B., Lombardo, M. V., Heinrichs, M., Chakrabarti, B., Sule, A., Deakin, J. B., Bethlehem, R. A. I., Dickens, L., Mooney, N., Sipple, J. A. N., et al. (2015) · Translational Psychiatry · doi:10.1038/tp.2014.146 · Cited by 234 · see citing works
Freeman, S. M., & Young, L. J. (2016) · Journal of Neuroendocrinology · doi:10.1111/jne.12382 · Cited by 196 · see citing works
“Although the central OXTR distribution in NHP may or may not be predictive of that of humans, given the remarkable species differences in receptor distribution, evidence is building from behavioural studies in both humans (76) and NHP that IN-OT is capable of altering social visual attention.”
BackgroundMeta-analysis of the effects of intranasal oxytocin on interpretation and expression of emotions
Leppanen, J., Ng, K. W., Tchanturia, K., & Treasure, J. (2017) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.04.010 · Cited by 188 · see citing works
Ma, Y., Shamay-Tsoory, S., Han, S., & Zink, C. F. (2016) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.10.009 · Cited by 131 · see citing works
Freeman, S. M., Palumbo, M. C., Lawrence, R. H., Smith, A. L., Goodman, M. M., & Bales, K. L. (2018) · Translational Psychiatry · doi:10.1038/s41398-018-0315-3 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
Oxytocin attenuates neural reactivity to masked threat cues from the eyes
Kanat, M., Heinrichs, M., Schwarzwald, R., & Domes, G. (2015) · Neuropsychopharmacology · doi:10.1038/npp.2014.183 · Cited by 77 · see citing works
Hubble, K., Daughters, K., Manstead, A. S. R., Rees, A., Thapar, A., & van Goozen, S. H. M. (2017) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.10.019 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Clark-Elford, R., Nathan, P. J., Auyeung, B., Mogg, K., Bradley, B. P., Sule, A., Müller, U., Dudas, R. B., Sahakian, B. J., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2015) · International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology · doi:10.1093/ijnp/pyu012 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Oxytocin promotes attention to social cues regardless of group membership
Pfundmair, M., Zwarg, C., Paulus, M., & Rimpel, A. (2017) · Hormones and Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2017.03.006 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
- Authors
- Tollenaar, M. S., Chatzimanoli, M., van der Wee, N. J. A., & Putman, P.
- Affiliations
- Leiden University (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Tollenaar, Marieke S.
- Venue
- Psychoneuroendocrinology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-09
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1797-1802
- ISSN
- 0306-4530 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2146739115
- Cited by
- 68
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 7
- FWCI
- 9.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Psychoneuroendocrinology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Universiteit Leiden
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- oxytocin, attentional orienting, gaze cues, emotional face processing, emotional expression, happy faces, fearful faces, stress, trait anxiety, depression, social cognition
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Affect, Anxiety, Attention, Blood Pressure, Cues, Depression, Double-Blind Method, Emotions, Facial Expression, Fear, Happiness, Heart Rate, Humans, Hydrocortisone, Male, Oxytocin, Saliva, Social Perception, Stress, Psychological, Cross-Over Studies, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
