Healthy adults typically display enhanced processing for self-(relative to other-) relevant and positive (relative to negative) information. However, it is unclear whether these two biases interact to form a selfpositivity bias, whereby self-positive information receives prioritized processing. It is also unclear how a blocked versus mixed referent design impacts reference and valence processing. We addressed these questions using behavioral and electrophysiological indices across two studies using a Self-Referential Encoding Task, followed by surprise recall and recognition tasks. Early (P1) and late (LPP) event-related potentials were time-locked to a series of trait adjectives, encoded relative to oneself or a fictional character, with referent presented in a blocked (Exp. 1) or mixed (Exp. 2) trial design. Regardless of study design, participants recalled and recognized more self-than other-relevant adjectives, and recognized more positive than negative adjectives. Additionally, participants demonstrated larger LPP amplitudes for self-relevant and positive adjectives. The LPP self-relevance effect emerged earlier and persisted longer in the blocked (400-800ms) versus mixed design (600-800ms). The LPP valence effect was not apparent in the blocked design, but appeared late in the mixed design (600-1200ms). Critically, the interaction between self-relevance and valence appeared only behaviorally in the mixed design, suggesting that overall self-relevance and valence independently impact neural socio-cognitive processing.
Previous work has shown that children's shyness is related to personal anxiety during social stress, but we know little about how shyness is related to anxiety during a peer's social stress. Children (M age = 10.22 years, SD = 0.81, N = 62) were paired with an unfamiliar peer and engaged in a speech task while electrocardiography was recorded. We modeled changes in children's heart rate, a physiological correlate of anxiety, while they observed their peer prepare and deliver a speech. Results revealed that the observing child's shyness related to increases in their heart rate during their peer's preparation period, but modulation of this arousal was sensitive to the presenting peer's anxious behavior while delivering their speech. Specifically, if the presenting child displayed high levels of anxious behavior, the observing child's shyness was related to further increases in heart rate, but if the presenting child displayed low levels of anxious behavior, the observing child's shyness was related to decreases in heart rate from the preparation period. Shy children may experience physiological arousal to a peer's social stress but can regulate this arousal based on social cues from the peer, which may be due to heightened social threat detection and/or empathic anxiety.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.