Social anxiety has been associated with abnormalities in cognitive processing in the literature, manifesting as various cognitive biases. To what extent these biases interrupt social interactions remains largely unclear. This study used the Social Judgment Paradigm that could separate the expectation and experience stages of social feedback processing. Event-related potentials (ERPs) in these two stages were recorded to detect the effect of social anxiety that might not be reflected by behavioral data. Participants were divided into two groups according to their social anxiety level. Participants in the high social anxiety (HSA) group were more likely to predict that they would be socially rejected by peers than did their low social anxiety (LSA) counterparts (i.e. the control group). Compared to the ERP data of the LSA group, the HSA group showed: (a) a larger P1 component to social cues (peer faces) prior to social feedback presentation, possibly indicating an attention bias; (b) a difference in feedback-related negativity amplitude between unexpected social acceptance and unexpected social rejection, possibly indicating an expectancy bias; and (c) a diminished sensitivity of the P3 amplitude to social feedback valence (be accepted/be rejected), possibly indicating an experience bias. These results could help understand the cognitive mechanisms that comprise and maintain social anxiety.

中文翻译：

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在社交焦虑中，负期望值与社交反馈处理受损的神经相关。

社交焦虑与文献中认知过程的异常有关，表现为各种认知偏差。这些偏见在多大程度上打断了社会互动，目前尚不清楚。这项研究使用了社会判断范式，可以将社会反馈处理的期望阶段和经验阶段分开。记录了这两个阶段中与事件相关的电位（ERP），以检测可能无法通过行为数据反映的社交焦虑的影响。根据参加者的社交焦虑程度将他们分为两组。高社交焦虑（HSA）组的参与者比低社交焦虑（LSA）组（即对照组）更容易预测他们会被同伴社交拒绝。与LSA组的ERP数据相比，HSA组显示：（a）在呈现社交反馈之前，社交线索（同龄人脸）中较大的P1成分，可能表明注意力偏倚；（b）意外的社会接受度和意外的社会排斥度之间与反馈相关的消极幅度不同，可能表明存在预期偏差；（c）P3幅度对社交反馈价的敏感度降低（被接受/被拒绝），可能表明存在体验偏差。这些结果可以帮助理解构成和维持社交焦虑的认知机制。（c）P3幅度对社交反馈价的敏感度降低（被接受/被拒绝），可能表明存在体验偏差。这些结果可以帮助理解构成和维持社交焦虑的认知机制。（c）P3幅度对社交反馈价的敏感度降低（被接受/被拒绝），可能表明存在体验偏差。这些结果可以帮助理解构成和维持社交焦虑的认知机制。