title: Working memory in social anxiety disorder: better manipulation of emotional versus neutral material in working memory.
abstract: Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) engage in post-event processing, a form of perseverative thinking. Given that deficits in working memory might underlie perseverative thinking, we examined working memory in SAD with a particular focus on the effects of stimulus valence. SAD (n = 31) and healthy control (n = 20) participants either maintained (forward trials) or reversed (backward trials) in working memory the order of four emotional or four neutral pictures, and we examined sorting costs, which reflect the extent to which performance deteriorated on the backward trials compared to the forward trials. Emotionality of stimuli affected performance of the two groups differently. Whereas control participants exhibited higher sorting costs for emotional stimuli compared to neutral stimuli, SAD participants exhibited the opposite pattern. Greater attention to emotional stimuli in SAD might facilitate the processing of emotional (vs. neutral) stimuli in working memory.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , University of Notre Dame , Notre Dame , IN , USA.
authors.forename: K Lira
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , University of Maine , Orono , ME , USA.
authors.forename: Amanda M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Kutz
authors.affiliation: c Department of Psychology , University of British Columbia , Vancouver , BC , Canada.
authors.forename: Joelle
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: LeMoult
authors.affiliation: d Department of Psychology , Yale University , New Haven , CT , USA.
authors.forename: Jutta
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Joormann
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D008875:Middle Aged; D000072861:Phobia, Social / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Working memory; attention; executive control; social anxiety disorder