Schedule of Events | Symposia

Error-Related Memory Biases Are Specific To Social Stimuli For Socially Anxious Individuals

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 29, 2025, 3:00 – 5:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Kianoosh Hosseini¹ (khoss005@fiu.edu), Aaron T. Mattfeld¹, Jeremy W. Pettit¹, George A. Buzzell¹; ¹Florida International University, Miami, FL

Social anxiety (SA) is associated with enhanced error monitoring, which refers to the ability to self-detect one’s own mistakes. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear. One hypothesis is that stronger error monitoring contributes to the maintenance/worsening of SA by strengthening the encoding of error events (including relevant social cues present when errors occur), negatively biasing what is remembered. Accordingly, we recently demonstrated that higher SA is associated with improved memory for social stimuli (faces) present on error (vs. correct) trials in a Flanker incidental memory paradigm. However, it is unknown whether these error-related memory biases for individuals high in SA are specific to social stimuli or instead reflect a general bias to encode any information present when errors occur. To examine this, we had two groups of participants (n = 140) perform a Flanker task when either trial-unique face (social) or object (non-social) images appeared behind Flanker stimuli followed by a surprise memory test for stimuli on error (vs. correct) trials. Notably, a significant interaction between SA symptoms and condition (p = 0.01) was found. Higher SA was associated with error-related memory biases only for social stimuli (p = 0.03), with no effect for non-social stimuli. Thus, we replicated the novel finding that individuals higher in SA exhibit a bias to remember more faces from error (vs. correct) trials. Moreover, the results demonstrate that SA-related memory biases for error events are specific to social stimuli, not a general bias to encode any information present on error trials.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control