title: Attentional networks and visuospatial working memory capacity in social anxiety.
abstract: Social anxiety is associated with attentional bias and working memory for emotional stimuli; however, the ways in which social anxiety affects cognitive functions involving non-emotional stimuli remains unclear. The present study focused on the role of attentional networks (i.e. alerting, orienting, and executive control networks) and visuospatial working memory capacity (WMC) for non-emotional stimuli in the context of social anxiety. One hundred and seventeen undergraduates completed questionnaires on social anxiety. They then performed an attentional network test and a change detection task to measure visuospatial WMC. Orienting network and visuospatial WMC were positively correlated with social anxiety. A multiple regression analysis showed significant positive associations of alerting, orienting, and visuospatial WMC with social anxiety. Alerting, orienting networks, and high visuospatial WMC for non-emotional stimuli may predict degree of social anxiety.
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Sociology , Kansai University , Osaka , Japan.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Moriya
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D000070379:Attentional Bias; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D012044:Regression Analysis; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Social anxiety; alerting; attentional network; orienting; working memory capacity