Oxytocin's Effects on Face Attentional Processing

The Modulatory Effect of Oxytocin on Attentional Processing of Emotional Faces

To investigate whether intranasal oxytocin (24IU) treatment has a regulatory effect on attentional processing of emotional faces.

In a placebo-controlled double-blind between-subject design experiment, investigators plan to investigate the effect of oxytocin treatment on attentional processing of emotional faces. Subjects complete questionnaires in Chinese versions before treatment administration, including the Beck Depression Inventory, Autism Spectrum Quotient , Trait Anxiety Inventory, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Multidimentional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness. This experiment consists of two tasks including Emotional Face Cue-target Task and Visual Search Task. In the first task, subjects need to make a response to judge the position of target after a cue-target is presented. In the second task, subjects are asked to search the target "U" or inverted "U" placed on the nose of emotional/neutral faces and make an choices based on their oorientation. During these phases, subjects' response accuracy, response time and electrophysiological activity (ERP) are recorded.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Healthy subjects without past or current psychiatric or neurological disorders.

Exclusion Criteria:

• history of head injury
• medical or psychiatric illness