Impaired Attentional Disengagement from Stimuli Matching the Contents of Working Memory in Social Anxiety

Abstract

Although many cognitive models in anxiety propose that an impaired top-down control enhances the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli, few studies have paid attention to task-irrelevant stimuli under a cognitive load task. In the present study, we investigated the effects of the working memory load on attention to task-irrelevant stimuli in trait social anxiety. The results showed that as trait social anxiety increased, participants were unable to disengage from task-irrelevant stimuli identical to the memory cue under low and high working memory loads. Impaired attentional disengagement was positively correlated with trait social anxiety. This impaired attentional disengagement was related to trait social anxiety, but not state anxiety. Our findings suggest that socially anxious people have difficulty in disengaging attention from a task-irrelevant memory cue owing to an impaired top-down control under a working memory load.

Attentional blink impairment in social anxiety disorder: Depression comorbidity matters

“…Our results are consistent with previous studies showing reduced attentional control in the context of non-threat distractors in socially anxious individuals (Moriya & Tanno, 2008; Moriya & Sugiura, 2012; Morrison & Heimberg, 2013). However, the current findings raise the possibility that previous findings were driven by the high degree of overlap between social anxiety and depression.…”

“…In two studies, self-reported attentional control was negatively correlated with social anxiety, even after statistically controlling for the effects of depression (Moriya & Tanno, 2008; Morrison & Heimberg, 2013). In a third study, social anxiety was positively correlated with difficulty disengaging attention from non-emotional, task-irrelevant stimuli being held in working memory (Moriya & Sugiura, 2012). However, this effect was not moderated by working memory load.…”

The effects of self-focus on attentional biases in social anxiety:An ERP study

“…With respect to working memory, research suggests that social anxiety may be associated with difficulty filtering nonemotional task-irrelevant information from visual working memory (Moriya & Sugiura, 2012a), particularly for those with low working memory capacity (Moriya & Sugiura, 2013) and regardless of whether cognitive load is low or high (Moriya & Sugiura, 2012b). A few studies have examined biases for socially threatening stimuli in social anxiety.…”

The 5‐hydroxytryptamine 4 receptor enables differentiation of informational content and encoding in the hippocampus

“…This may comprise a functional mechanism whereby, under conditions of strong 5‐HT 4 ‐receptor activation pattern separation is promoted (in CA1 and DG) at the expense of pattern completion in CA3. This in turn could explain why under circumstances where 5‐HT homeostasis is impaired (Heisler et al, ; Kusserow et al, ; Pennanen et al, ), inadequate 5‐HT 4 ‐receptor activation leads to redundant or excessive encoding of details of a given experience (Moriya and Sugiura, ).…”