Intranasal Oxytocin Increases Perceptual Salienceof Faces in the Absence of Awareness

ABSTRACT

Objective@#The neuropeptide oxytocin has been found to improve human social cognition and promote prosocial behavior. However, itis still unclear about the mechanisms underlying these effects of oxytocin on neural processes, such as visual perception and awareness.Especially, it is still unclear whether oxytocin influences perceptual salience of social stimuli in the absence of awareness. @*Methods@#In a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial we applied an interocular suppression paradigm and eye tracking @*methods@#to investigate the influence of intranasally administered oxytocin on perceptual salience of social stimuli. Suppression times andpupillometric data were measured during subjects being presented with gradually introduced pictures of social stimuli (neutral expressionfaces) or nonsocial stimuli (grayscale watch pictures) that were suppressed and invisible in 10 men who were administered 24 IU oxytocinand 10 men who were administered a placebo. @*Results@#The results demonstrated that the oxytocin group perceived social stimuli more quickly accompanied by subsequent larger increasingpupil diameter than nonsocial stimuli, indicating an increased unconscious salience of social stimuli. @*Conclusion@#These findings provided new insights into oxytocin’s modulatory role to social information processing, suggesting that oxytocinmight enhance attentional bias to social stimuli even after removal of awareness. Psychiatry Investig 2020;17(4)292-298