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. 2023 Apr 7;18(4):e0282259.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0282259. eCollection 2023.

The interplay between cognitive biases, attention control, and social anxiety symptoms: A network and cluster approach

Nathalie Claus  1 , Keisuke Takano  1 , Charlotte E Wittekind  1
Affiliations

The interplay between cognitive biases, attention control, and social anxiety symptoms: A network and cluster approach

Nathalie Claus et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Cognitive models of social anxiety highlight the importance of different cognitive biases (e.g., attention bias, interpretation bias) and executive dysfunctions, which have, however, mostly been investigated in isolation. The present study explored their interplay using two statistical approaches: (1) network analysis to identify the unique associations between cognitive functions, and (2) cluster analysis to reveal how these associations (or combinations) are manifested in a population. Participants from the general population (N = 147) completed measures of attention control, attention bias, interpretation bias, and social anxiety symptoms. Network analysis showed an association between social anxiety symptoms and interpretation bias, although no other significant associations emerged. Cluster analysis identified a group of participants characterized by an adaptive cognitive pattern (i.e., low cognitive biases, good executive function); and a group exhibiting a more maladaptive pattern (i.e., high interpretation bias, good alerting but poor executive function). The maladaptive group showed higher levels of social anxiety than the adaptive group. Results highlight the strong association between social anxiety symptoms and interpretation bias, while challenging the putative role of attention bias. Attention control, particularly executive function, may limit the impact of cognitive bias on anxiety symptoms.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Experimental set-up of the SST.
Schematic flow of a trial in the Scrambled Sentence Task (a) and example Target displays (b). Participants are presented with a scrambled sentence (see top line of Panel b) and required to click on five of the six words in an order that produces a grammatically correct sentence (see bottom line of Panel b). In this display, the sentence (“nervous don’t groups very me make”) is unscrambled in a positive fashion (“groups don’t make me nervous”).
Fig 2
Fig 2. Experimental set-up of the VST.
Experimental trial (a) and example “search task” arrays of the facilitation (b) and interference (c) conditions of the VST. Participants are presented with an array of eight faces and required to detect whether there is a divergent target present or whether all faces are the same. Both example arrays represent target-present trials.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Diagram of regularized network with tuning parameter set to γ = 0.5.
ANT: Alert, Orient, Execut = Attention Network Test: Alerting, Orienting, Executive function. VST: Diseng, Engage = Visual Search Task: disengagement, engagement; SST = Scrambled Sentence Task; SPIN = Social Phobia Inventory.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Profiles of cognitive functions identified by hierarchical clustering.
ANT: Alt, Ort, Exc = Attention Network Test: Alerting, Orienting, Executive function [higher score indicates better functioning in each domain]. VST: Disen, Engag = Visual search task: disengagement, engagement [higher score indicates greater attention bias]. SST = Scrambled Sentence Task [higher score indicates greater interpretation bias]. SPIN = Social Phobia Inventory [higher score indicates greater symptom severity].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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