title: Socially anxious individuals with low working memory capacity could not inhibit the goal-irrelevant information.
abstract: Socially anxious individuals are interfered by distractors. Recent work has suggested that low working memory capacity and inappropriate temporary goal induce attention to distractors. We investigated the effects of working memory capacity and temporary goal on attention to distractors in social anxiety. Participants viewed a rapid serial visual presentation, in which participants reported the identity of a single target letter drawn in red. Distractors appeared before the target was presented. When the color of distractors was red (i.e., goal-relevant stimuli), low-capacity individuals were strongly interfered by the distractors compared to high-capacity individuals regardless of social anxiety. When the color of distractors was goal-irrelevant, low-capacity and high socially anxious individuals were strongly interfered by the distractors. These results suggest that socially anxious individuals with low working memory capacity could not inhibit the goal-irrelevant information and direct attention to distractors.
authors.affiliation: 1Department of Psychology, College of Contemporary Psychology, Rikkyo University Saitama, Japan.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Moriya
authors.affiliation: 2Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshinori
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sugiura
keywords: goal setting; selective attention; social anxiety; spatial blink; visual working memory capacity