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Related Concept Videos

Social Anxiety Disorder01:28

Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety disorder, also known as social phobia, is characterized by an intense fear of social situations where one might face humiliation, rejection, embarrassment, or negative evaluation. This disorder leads individuals to avoid activities like casual conversations, public speaking, or seemingly simple tasks such as eating, signing documents, or swimming, in public settings. Its impact extends beyond discomfort, often significantly interfering with daily functioning and quality of life.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 23, 2026

Comparing Eye-tracking Data of Children with High-functioning ASD, Comorbid ADHD, and of a Control Watching Social Videos
05:32

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Published on: December 7, 2018

High visual working memory capacity in trait social anxiety.

Jun Moriya1, Yoshinori Sugiura

  • 1Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium. Jun.Moriya@UGent.be

Plos One
|April 13, 2012
PubMed
Summary

Trait social anxiety may increase visual working memory capacity but impair distractor inhibition. This suggests anxious individuals can hold more visual information but struggle to filter irrelevant details under demanding conditions.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Psychopathology

Background:

  • Working memory capacity impacts cognitive functions like attention and intelligence.
  • Anxiety is linked to cognitive impairments, particularly reduced verbal working memory.
  • The effect of trait anxiety on visual working memory capacity remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between trait social anxiety and visual working memory capacity.
  • To determine if anxiety influences the ability to inhibit distractors in visual working memory.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a change detection task to assess visual working memory capacity.
  • Measured trait social anxiety and state anxiety levels.
  • Manipulated distractor inhibition demands during the task.

Main Results:

  • Visual working memory capacity positively correlated with trait social anxiety.
  • High trait social anxiety led to diminished visual working memory capacity when distractor inhibition was required.
  • Impaired distractor filtering, not working memory capacity, was predicted by trait social anxiety.
  • State anxiety showed no correlation with visual working memory capacity.

Conclusions:

  • Socially anxious individuals may possess higher visual working memory capacity.
  • Impaired distractor inhibition in social anxiety affects cognitive performance under demanding conditions.
  • Working memory in social anxiety is characterized by difficulty filtering irrelevant information.