The neural correlates of social anxiety modulating conflict-driven cognitive control: An ERP study

Abstract

According to attentional control theory and processing efficiency theory, anxiety impairs top-down cognitive control and processing efficiency under threat-related stimuli conditions. However, what is the resulting pattern under an emotionally neutral condition? Therefore, the study examined whether individuals with social anxiety exhibited the cognitive control deficiency in absence of emotional information and how social anxiety modulated cognitive control performance by recording the N2, N450, and SP components in the Stroop task. Behavioral data showed that participants with high social anxiety (HSA) showed slower response times than low social anxiety (LSA). ERP data showed that in HSA participants, congruent trials elicited more negative N2 than incongruent trials, but this was not for LSA ones. The N450 was more negative under incongruent condition than congruent ones. This effect was noticeable in LSA participants, but not in HSA ones. The conflict SP was more positive under incongruent condition than congruent one in HSA participants but not in LSA ones. The significant group differences of the N450 and SP were found mainly for incongruent condition. The present findings indicate that individuals with HSA exhibited cognitive control deficiency for neutral stimuli and an individual’s social anxiety modulates the neural correlates of conflict-driven cognitive control.