title: Response bias-related impairment of early subjective face discrimination in social anxiety disorders: An event-related potential study.
abstract: Considerable research has shown that social anxiety disorder (SAD) is accompanied by various negative cognitive biases, such as social feedback expectancy bias, memory bias, and interpretation bias. However, whether the memory bias in individuals with SAD is actually a manifestation of response bias, and whether such response bias is associated with deficits in face discrimination, remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated response bias (i.e., a tendency to recognize more negative evaluations) to faces with positive (social acceptance) or negative (social rejection) social evaluations in individuals with SAD and healthy controls (HCs) using event-related potentials (ERPs). Behavioral results revealed significant group differences in response bias in the forced-choice recall task, but no difference in overall memory accuracy. ERP results demonstrated that HCs showed a larger N170 to faces that had rejected them as compared to those that had accepted them, but this effect was not evident in the SAD group. Further analysis showed that response bias was correlated with the ΔN170 (rejected - accepted) amplitude. We concluded that the response bias in individuals with SAD is resulted from impairments in early discrimination of social faces, as reflected by the absent early N170 differentiation effect, which was associated with their combined negative biases.
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
authors.forename: Yanyan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
authors.forename: Ruolei
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, Harbin Medical University, Daqing, Heilongjiang Province, China.
authors.forename: Jianqin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, Harbin Medical University, Daqing, Heilongjiang Province, China.
authors.forename: Xuejing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Bi
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Electronic address: wuhy@psych.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Haiyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Electronic address: liux@psych.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Xun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D000072861:Phobia, Social / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Expectancy bias; Memory bias; N170; Response bias; Social anxiety disorder; Social evaluation; Social phobia; Social rejection