title: The impact of social threat cues on a card sorting task with attentional-shifting demands.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The current study investigated social anxiety and attentional control using two versions of a task designed to tap intentional shifting of attention and set switching: the standard Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST; Heaton, 1981) and a modified version that included emotionally salient pictorial stimuli, the Emotional Faces Card Sorting Test (EFCST). A Group (lower-, higher-SPS) by Condition (WCST, EFCST) by Sorting Rule (color, form, number) interaction was expected in which the higher-SPS EFCST group would have worse overall performance and make more perseverative errors than the other groups. No differences were predicted on nonperseverative errors, which are typically caused by brief attentional lapses.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were 80 undergraduate students who scored in the upper and lower quartile of the distribution on the Social Phobia Scale (SPS; Mattick & Clarke, 1998) were randomly assigned to complete either the WCST or EFCST.
  
  
  RESULTS
  On the WCST, the higher-SPS group showed performance similar to that of the lower-SPS group. On the EFCST, the higher-SPS group evidenced more perseverative errors in the condition that depicted angry faces.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Interpretations based on a non-clinical sample limit the generalisability of the conclusions. Reliability of this new measure has yet to be established. Successful completion of the WCST requires more than set-shifting processes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggest that the higher-SPS group in the EFCST condition might have had trouble disengaging attention from threat-related cues, despite ongoing corrective feedback.
authors.affiliation: William Paterson University, Department of Psychology, United States. Electronic address: jmohlman@wpunj.edu.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mohlman
authors.affiliation: Teachers College, Columbia University, Department of Clinical Psychology, United States.
authors.forename: Alyssa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: DeVito
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013334:Students; D014495:Universities; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Anxiety and cognition; Information processing; Set shifting; Social anxiety