Altered working memory capacity for social threat words in high versus low social anxiety
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Differences in working memory capacity may lead to preferential maintenance of socially threatening material in individuals with high social anxiety. Here we used word span tasks, adapted from the digit span task, to assess working memory capacity for material of varying threat-relatedness, in individuals with high or low social anxiety. Our findings suggest that individuals high in social anxiety may fail to upregulate working memory capacity for social information due to the activation of socially threatening concepts.