Attentional networks and visuospatial working memory capacity in social anxiety

ABSTRACT

Social anxiety is associated with attentional bias and working memory for emotional stimuli; however, the ways in which social anxiety affects cognitive functions involving non-emotional stimuli remains unclear. The present study focused on the role of attentional networks (i.e. alerting, orienting, and executive control networks) and visuospatial working memory capacity (WMC) for non-emotional stimuli in the context of social anxiety. One hundred and seventeen undergraduates completed questionnaires on social anxiety. They then performed an attentional network test and a change detection task to measure visuospatial WMC. Orienting network and visuospatial WMC were positively correlated with social anxiety. A multiple regression analysis showed significant positive associations of alerting, orienting, and visuospatial WMC with social anxiety. Alerting, orienting networks, and high visuospatial WMC for non-emotional stimuli may predict degree of social anxiety.

KEYWORDS:

• Social anxiety
• attentional network
• working memory capacity
• orienting
• alerting

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) under Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up (25885079).