title: Susceptibility to distraction by social cues in borderline personality disorder.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are highly sensitive to social rejection and show alterations in social perception. Increased susceptibility to social cues in patients with BPD might interfere with executive functions that play an important role in goal-directed behavior. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of task-irrelevant (neutral vs. negatively arousing) social cues on working memory performance in BPD patients compared to healthy controls (HC).
  
  
  METHODS
  28 unmedicated female BPD patients and 28 female HC (matched for age and education) performed a Sternberg item recognition task, while being distracted by neutral versus negatively arousing pictures from the International Affective Picture System (interpersonal scenes) and the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces Set (faces). Additionally, self-ratings of aversive inner tension were assessed and correlated with task performance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared to HC, BPD patients showed significantly impaired accuracy after distraction by negatively arousing stimuli (both scenes and faces) and neutral faces (but not neutral scenes). Significant negative correlations between overall accuracy and self-reported aversive inner tension were observed in BPD patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Findings of the present study suggest increased susceptibility to distracting (negatively arousing) social cues in individuals with BPD, which might interfere with cognitive functioning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Annegret
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Krause-Utz
authors.forename: Bernet M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Elzinga
authors.forename: Nicole Y L
authors.initials: NY
authors.lastname: Oei
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Spinhoven
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bohus
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schmahl
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003071:Cognition; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D008875:Middle Aged; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis