Unexpected Acceptance? Patients with Social Anxiety Disorder Manifest their Social Expectancy in ERPs During Social Feedback Processing

Repetition suppression between monetary loss and social pain

The relationship between monetary loss and pain has been a recent research focus. Prior studies found similarities in the network representation patterns of monetary loss and pain, particularly social pain. However, the neural level evidence was lacking. To address this, we conducted an ERP experiment to investigate whether there is a repetitive suppression effect of monetary loss on the neural activity of social pain, aiming to understand if they engage overlapping neuronal populations. The results revealed that FRN amplitudes showed repetitive suppression effects of monetary loss on the neural activity of social pain. Our study suggests that monetary loss and social pain share common neural bases, indicating that they might involve shared neural modules related to cognitive conflict and affective appraisal.

Effects of peer victimization on cortical processing of social-evaluative stress in patients with major depressive disorder

Peer victimization contributes to the development of major depressive disorders (MDDs). While previous studies reported differentiated peripheral physiological responses in peer-victimized individuals with depression, little is known about potential alterations of cortical event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to social stimuli in depressive patients with a history of peer victimization. Using a social condition paradigm, the present study examined whether peer victimization alters conditioned cortical responses to potentially threatening social stimuli in MDD patients and healthy controls. In the task, we studied ERPs to conditioned stimuli (CSs), i.e. still images of faces, that were coupled to unconditioned socially negative and neutral evaluative video statements. Peer victimization was related to more pronounced P100 amplitudes in reaction to negative and neutral CSs. Attenuated P200 amplitudes in peer-victimized individuals were found in response to negative CSs. Cortical responses to CSs were not influenced by a diagnosis of MDD. The results suggest altered responsiveness to interpersonal information in peer-victimized individuals. Facilitated early processing of social threat indicators may prevent peer-victimized individuals from adaptive responses to social cues, increasing their vulnerability for depression.

How and when social evaluative feedback is processed in the brain: A systematic review on ERP studies

Social evaluative feedback informs the receiver of the other's views, which may contain judgments of personality-related traits and/or the level of likability. Such kinds of social evaluative feedback are of particular importance to humans. Event-related potentials (ERPs) can directly measure where in the processing stream feedback valence, expectancy, or contextual relevance modulate information processing. This review provides an overview and systematization of studies and early, mid-latency, and late ERP effects. Early effects were inconsistently reported for all factors. Feedback valence effects are more consistently reported for specific mid-latency ERPs (Reward Positivity, RewP, and Early Posterior Negativity, EPN) and late positivities (P3 and Late Positive Potential, LPP). Unexpected feedback consistently increased the Feedback Related Negativity (FRN) and, less consistently, decreased P3 amplitudes. Contextual relevance of the sender (e.g., human vs computer sender) or self-relatedness increased mid-latency to late ERPs. Interactions between valence and other factors were less often found, arising during mid-latency stages, where most consistent interactions showed larger EPN and P3 amplitude differences for valent feedback in a more relevant context. The ERP findings highlight that social evaluative feedback is consistently differentiated during mid-latency processing stages. The review discusses the relevance of findings, possible shortcomings of different experimental designs, and open questions. Furthermore, we suggest concrete venues for future research.

Preexposure to one social threat alters responses to another social threat: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

A recent Cyberball study has indicated that the experience of loss of control can affect how people process subsequent social exclusion. This "preexposure effect" supports the idea of a common cognitive system involved in the processing of different types of social threats. To test the validity of this assumption in the current study, we reversed the sequence of the preexposure setup. We measured the effects of social exclusion on the subsequent processing of loss of control utilizing event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and self-reports. In the control group (CG, n = 26), the transition to loss of control elicited significant increases in both the P3 amplitude and the self-reported negative mood. Replicating the results of the previous preexposure study, these effects were significantly reduced by the preexposure to an independent social threat (here: social exclusion). In contrast to previous findings, these effects were not modulated by the discontinuation (EG1disc, n = 25) or continuation (EG2cont, n = 24) of the preexposure threat. Given that the P3 effect is related to the violation of subjective expectations, these results support the notion that preexposure to a specific social threat has widespread effects on the individuals' expectancy of upcoming social participation and control.

Altered Putamen Activation for Social Comparison-Related Feedback in Social Anxiety Disorder: A Pilot Study

INTRODUCTION

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by abnormal processing of performance-related social stimuli. Previous studies have shown altered emotional experiences and activations of different sub-regions of the striatum during processing of social stimuli in patients with SAD. However, whether and to what extent social comparisons affect behavioural and neural responses to feedback stimuli in patients with SAD is unknown.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

To address this issue, emotional ratings and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses were assessed while patients suffering from SAD and healthy controls (HC) were required to perform a choice task and received performance feedback (correct, incorrect, non-informative) that varied in relation to the performance of fictitious other participants (a few, half, or most of others had the same outcome).

RESULTS

Across all performance feedback conditions, fMRI analyses revealed reduced activations in bilateral putamen when feedback was assumed to be received by only a few compared to half of the other participants in patients with SAD. Nevertheless, analysis of rating data showed a similar modulation of valence and arousal ratings in patients with SAD and HC depending on social comparison-related feedback.

CONCLUSIONS

This suggests altered neural processing of performance feedback depending on social comparisons in patients with SAD.

Neural evidence of face processing in social anxiety disorder: A systematic review with meta-analysis

Numerous previous studies have used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine facial processing deficits in individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD). However, researchers still need to determine whether the deficits are general or specific and what the dominant factors are behind different cognitive stages. Meta-analysis was performed to quantitatively identify face processing deficits in individuals with SAD. Ninety-seven results in 27 publications involving 1032 subjects were calculated using Hedges' g. The results suggest that the face itself elicits enlarged P1 amplitudes, threat-related facial expressions induce larger P2 amplitudes, and negative facial expressions lead to enhanced P3/LPP amplitudes in SAD individuals compared with controls. That is, there is face perception attentional bias in the early phase (P1), threat attentional bias in the mid-term phase (P2), and negative emotion attentional bias in the late phase (P3/LPP), which can be summarized into a three-phase SAD face processing deficit model. These findings provide an essential theoretical basis for cognitive behavioral therapy and have significant application value for the initial screening, intervention, and treatment of social anxiety.

Allostatic-interoceptive anticipation of social rejection

Anticipating social stress evokes strong reactions in the organism, including interoceptive modulations. However, evidence for this claim comes from behavioral studies, often with inconsistent results, and relates almost solely to the reactive and recovery phase of social stress exposure. Here, we adopted an allostatic-interoceptive predictive coding framework to study interoceptive and exteroceptive anticipatory brain responses using a social rejection task. We analyzed the heart-evoked potential (HEP) and task-related oscillatory activity of 58 adolescents via scalp EEG, and 385 human intracranial recordings of three patients with intractable epilepsy. We found that anticipatory interoceptive signals increased in the face of unexpected social outcomes, reflected in larger negative HEP modulations. Such signals emerged from key brain allostatic-interoceptive network hubs, as shown by intracranial recordings. Exteroceptive signals were characterized by early activity between 1-15 Hz across conditions, and modulated by the probabilistic anticipation of reward-related outcomes, observed over distributed brain regions. Our findings suggest that the anticipation of a social outcome is characterized by allostatic-interoceptive modulations that prepare the organism for possible rejection. These results inform our understanding of interoceptive processing and constrain neurobiological models of social stress.

Does the Power of Social Example Fade? Nudge Effect of Social Information on Individual's Donation Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Moderated Mediation Model with Three-Wave Cross-Sectional Data

Purpose

This study assesses how various social information influence individuals' money donation behaviors towards charitable funds against the COVID-19 pandemic at different stages of the pandemic. It also explores the mediating role of social anxiety and the moderating role of self-control.

Materials and Methods

This three-wave study was conducted with online survey experiments using convenience sampling at the pandemic's outbreak stage (April-June 2020), trough stage (February-March 2021), and resurgence stage (May 2022) in China. The nudge power of social information was measured by whether participants changed their initial money donation decisions after informed positive or negative social information. Self-report scales were used to measure levels of social anxiety (Social Interaction Anxiety Scale) and self-control (Self-Control Scale). The final data set included 1371 participants from 26 provinces of mainland China. Stata medeff package and SPSS PROCESS were used to analyze the data.

Results

Individuals' initial donation behaviors did not fluctuate along with the pandemic status, but the nudge effect of social information did. From outbreak stage to trough stage, the nudge power of positive social information significantly declined, but did not significantly change again at the resurgence stage. By contrast, the nudge power of negative social information did not significantly differ between outbreak and trough stage but did significantly increase at the resurgence stage. Social anxiety played a significant mediating role in the relationship between COVID-19 status and power of social information. Moreover, self-control moderated the direct effect of COVID-19 status on power of social information and the indirect effect via social anxiety.

Conclusion

Our findings enrich research on the nudge power variation of social information on individuals' donation behaviors along with the pandemic status and its potential psychological influence factors. This study also helps guide organizations to better design and carry out social information nudge mechanism.

Social Context and Rejection Expectations Modulate Neural and Behavioral Responses to Social Feedback

When meeting other people, some are optimistic and expect to be accepted by others, whereas others are pessimistic and expect mostly rejections. How social feedback is evaluated in situations that meet or do not meet these biases and how people differ in their response to rejection and acceptance depending on the social situation are unknown. In this study, participants experienced rejection and acceptance by peers in two different social contexts, one with high (negative context) and the other with low probability of rejection (positive context). We examined how the neural and behavioral responses to rejection are altered by this context and whether it depends on the individual's sensitivity to rejection. Behavioral results show that, on average, people maintain an optimistic bias even when mostly experiencing rejection. Importantly, personality differences in rejection sensitivity affected both prior expectations to be rejected in the paradigm and the extent to which expectations changed during the paradigm. The context also strongly modulated ERPs and theta responses to rejection and acceptance feedback. Specifically, valence effects on neural responses were enhanced in the negative context, suggesting a greater relevance to monitor social feedback in such a situation. Moreover, midfrontal theta predicted how expectations were changed in response to prediction errors, stressing a role for theta in learning from social feedback. Surprisingly, interindividual differences in rejection sensitivity did not affect neural responses to feedback. Our results stress the importance of considering the interaction between subjective expectations and the social context for behavioral and neural responses to social rejection.

The Study of Face Processing in Social Anxiety Disorder Based on Face-Specific N170 Component

Although previous studies showed that social anxiety disorder (SAD) exhibits the attentional bias for angry faces, few studies investigated effective face recognition combined with event-related potential (ERP) technique in SAD patients, especially the treatment effect. This study examines the differences in face processing in SAD patients before and after treatment and healthy control people (H-group). High-density EEG scans were registered in response to emotional schematic faces, particularly interested in the face processing N170 component. Analysis of N170 amplitude revealed a larger N170 for P-group-pre in response to inverted and upright stimuli than H-group in the right hemisphere. The result of the intragroup t-test showed that N170 was delayed for inverted relative to upright faces only in P-group-post and H-group but not in P-group-pre. Remarkably, the results of ANOVAs manifested that emotional expression cannot modulate N170 for SAD patients. Besides, the N170-based asymmetry index (AI) was introduced to analyze the left- and right-hemisphere dominance of N170 for three groups. It was found that, with the improvement of patients' treatment, the value of AI_{N170−base  d} presented a decreasing trend. These results together suggested that there was no inversion effect observed for patients with SAD. The change in the value of AI_{N170−base  d} can be used as potential electrophysiological markers for the diagnosis and treatment effects on patients with SAD.

Cultural group differences in the association of neural sensitivity to social feedback and social anxiety among diverse adolescents

Social anxiety disproportionately impacts individuals from certain cultural and developmental groups, namely those from Latinx and Asian American cultures and adolescents. Neural sensitivity to social feedback has been shown to vary across individuals and could contribute to this disparity by further exacerbating differences; thus, this could be an important phenomenon for understanding, preventing, and treating social anxiety. The goal of the present study was to examine the association of social anxiety with a neural correlate of feedback processing, the feedback-related negativity (FRN), and determine if there was a moderating effect of racial/ethnic group. A community sample of 104 Latinx (n = 41), Asian American (n = 24), and non-Latinx White (NLW; n = 39) adolescents (ages 13-17) completed a computerized peer feedback task while continuous electroencephalogram was recorded. Social anxiety and FRN measures were differentially associated as a function of race/ethnicity. NLW adolescents demonstrated greater FRN responses to acceptance feedback as social anxiety increased, whereas FRN responses to both rejection and acceptance feedback were related to greater social anxiety for Asian American adolescents. Notably, the Latinx group showed the greatest FRN responses yet endorsed the least amount of social anxiety, with no relation between social anxiety and FRN detected. Results highlight cultural variation in the relation between neural correlates of self-regulatory processes and social anxiety. This information could guide culturally-informed models of social anxiety that adopt a multiple units of analysis framework.

Neural correlates of negative expectancy and impaired social feedback processing in social anxiety

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.

The Contagion of Donation Behaviors Changes Along With the Abatement of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Intertemporal Survey Experiment

We conducted an intertemporal online experiment to examine the contagion of others’ positive and negative donation behaviors. We collected two sets of data during and after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The participants donated to the charitable fund, “Against COVID-19, The China Charity Federation Is on the Move.” We further investigated the mediating effect of social anxiety on the link between the contagion of donation behaviors and the changes in the COVID-19 situation. A total of 1022 participants (Mage = 22.68, 63.01% females) participated in the intertemporal online experiment and were considered in the statistical analyses. Our findings were as follows. First, the donation behaviors of others significantly changed these participants’ initial donation decisions, with increased or decreased donation amounts being associated with a positive or negative donation behavior, respectively. Others’ positive donation behavior was more likely to nudge these participants into changing their initial decisions (31.82%, Mean = 15.177, SD = 1.586) than negative donation behavior (18.28%, Mean = 12.122, SD = 1.908) during the peak of the pandemic. However, such difference disappeared after the peak because the contagion of positive donation behavior significantly decreased along with the abatement of the pandemic. Second, the participants’ social anxiety decreased along with the abatement of the pandemic, and social anxiety completely mediated the relationship between the pandemic abatement and the decrease in the contagion of positive donation behaviors. These findings advance our understanding of the motivations and influence mechanism of individuals’ donation decisions in the current pandemic situation and help make informed policy making decisions.

Neural Response to Monetary and Social Feedback Demonstrate Differential Associations with Depression and Social Anxiety

An aberrant neural response to rewards has been linked to both depression and social anxiety. Most studies have focused on the neural response to monetary rewards, and few have tested different modalities of reward (e.g. social) that are more salient to particular forms of psychopathology. In addition, most studies contain critical confounds, including contrasting positive and negative feedback and failing to disentangle being correct from obtaining positive feedback. In the present study, 204 participants underwent electroencephalography during monetary and social feedback tasks that were matched in trial structure, timing and feedback stimuli. The reward positivity (RewP) was measured in response to correctly identifying stimuli that resulted in monetary win, monetary loss, social like or social dislike feedback. All monetary and social tasks elicited a RewP, which were positively correlated. Across all tasks, the RewP was negatively associated with depression and positively associated with social anxiety. The RewP to social dislike feedback, independent of monetary and social like feedback, was also associated with social anxiety. The present study suggests that a domain-general neural response to correct feedback demonstrates a differential association with depression and social anxiety, but a domain-specific neural response to social dislike feedback is uniquely associated with social anxiety.

Processing of increased frequency of social interaction in social anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder

We investigated how patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) process an increase in the frequency of social interaction. We used an EEG-compatible version of the online ball-tossing game Cyberball to induce an increase in the frequency of social interaction. In the first condition, each player received the ball equally often (inclusion: 33% ball reception). In the following condition, the frequency of the ball reception was increased (overinclusion: 45% ball reception). The main outcome variable was the event-related potential P2, an indicator for social reward processing. Moreover, positive emotions were assessed. Twenty-eight patients with SAD, 29 patients with BPD and 28 healthy controls (HCs) participated. As expected, HCs and patients with BPD, but not patients with SAD, showed an increase in the P2 amplitude from the inclusion to the overinclusion condition. Contrary to our expectations, positive emotions did not change from the inclusion to the overinclusion condition. EEG results provide preliminary evidence that patients with BPD and HCs, but not patients with SAD, process an increase in the frequency of social interaction as rewarding.

Which kind of feedback has a greater impact on individuals with social anxiety: facial or textual? An ERP study

The present study is the first to compare the examined electrophysiological activity of facial and textual feedback of students with social anxiety after they finished a visual search task. Compared to textual feedback, facial feedback is much more effective. Specifically speaking, positive facial feedback caused stronger feedback-related negativity (FRN), and negative facial feedback caused late positive potential (LPP) of stronger amplitude. These changes in the FRN component (associated with feedback) and LPP (related to controlled attention engagement) provide clues about the interplay between anxiety and attention allocation in processing facial feedback. The results have implications for identifying the feedback format that will be most helpful for individuals with social anxiety.

Social Feedback Valence Differentially Modulates the Reward Positivity, P300, and Late Positive Potential

Abnormal social or reward processing is associated with several mental disorders. Although most studies examining reward processing have focused on monetary rewards, recent research also has tested neural reactivity to social rewards (e.g., positive social feedback). However, the majority of these studies only include two feedback valences (e.g., acceptance, rejection). Yet, social evaluation is rarely binary (positive vs. negative) and people often give 'on the fence' or neutral evaluations of others. Processing of this type of social feedback may be ambiguous and impacted by factors such as psychopathology, self-esteem, and prior experiences of rejection. Thus, the present study probed the reward positivity (RewP), P300, and late positive potential (LPP) following acceptance, rejection, and "one the fence" [between acceptance and rejection] feedback in undergraduate students (n = 45). Results indicated that the RewP showed more positive amplitudes following acceptance compared to both rejection and "on the fence" feedback, and the RewP was larger (i.e., more positive) following rejection relative to "on the fence" feedback. In contrast, the P300 did not differ between rejection and "on the fence" feedback, and both were reduced compared to acceptance. The LPP was blunted in response to rejection relative to acceptance and "on the fence" feedback (which did not differ from each other). Exploratory analyses demonstrated that greater self-reported rejection sensitivity was associated with a reduced LPP to acceptance. Taken together, these findings suggest that the neural systems underlying the RewP, P300, and LPP may evaluate "on the fence" social feedback differently, and that individuals high on rejection sensitivity may exhibit reduced attention toward and elaborative processing of social acceptance.

The vicious circle of social exclusion and psychopathology: a systematic review of experimental ostracism research in psychiatric disorders

Social exclusion (ostracism) is a major psychosocial factor contributing to the development and persistence of psychiatric disorders and is also related to their social stigma. However, its specific role in different disorders is not evident, and comprehensive social psychology research on ostracism has rather focused on healthy individuals and less on psychiatric patients. Here, we systematically review experimental studies investigating psychological and physiological reactions to ostracism in different responses of psychiatric disorders. Moreover, we propose a theoretical model of the interplay between psychiatric symptoms and ostracism. A systematic MEDLINE and PsycINFO search was conducted including 52 relevant studies in various disorders (some of which evaluated more than one disorder): borderline personality disorder (21 studies); major depressive disorder (11 studies); anxiety (7 studies); autism spectrum disorder (6 studies); schizophrenia (6 studies); substance use disorders (4 studies); and eating disorders (2 studies). Psychological and physiological effects of ostracism were assessed with various experimental paradigms: e.g., virtual real-time interactions (Cyberball), social feedback and imagined scenarios. We critically review the main results of these studies and propose the overall concept of a vicious cycle where psychiatric symptoms increase the chance of being ostracized, and ostracism consolidates or even aggravates psychopathology. However, the specificity and stability of reactions to ostracism, their neurobiological underpinnings, determinants, and moderators (e.g., attachment style, childhood trauma, and rejection sensitivity) remain elusive.

Review of EEG, ERP, and Brain Connectivity Estimators as Predictive Biomarkers of Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by a fear of negative evaluation, negative self-belief and extreme avoidance of social situations. These recurrent symptoms are thought to maintain the severity and substantial impairment in social and cognitive thoughts. SAD is associated with a disruption in neuronal networks implicated in emotional regulation, perceptual stimulus functions, and emotion processing, suggesting a network system to delineate the electrocortical endophenotypes of SAD. This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive review of the most frequently studied electroencephalographic (EEG) spectral coupling, event-related potential (ERP), visual-event potential (VEP), and other connectivity estimators in social anxiety during rest, anticipation, stimulus processing, and recovery states. A search on Web of Science provided 97 studies that document electrocortical biomarkers and relevant constructs pertaining to individuals with SAD. This study aims to identify SAD neuronal biomarkers and provide insight into the differences in these biomarkers based on EEG, ERPs, VEP, and brain connectivity networks in SAD patients and healthy controls (HC). Furthermore, we proposed recommendations to improve methods of delineating the electrocortical endophenotypes of SAD, e.g., a fusion of EEG with other modalities such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalograms (MEG), to realize better effectiveness than EEG alone, in order to ultimately evolve the treatment selection process, and to review the possibility of using electrocortical measures in the early diagnosis and endophenotype examination of SAD.

Your losses are mine: The influence of empathic concern on evaluative processing of others' outcomes

Neural responses to others' decision-making outcomes can be modulated by many social factors. Using the event-related potential (ERP) technique, we explored the neural mechanisms of empathic concern modulating evaluative processing of others' outcomes. Participants were asked to perform a gambling task for three beneficiaries: themselves and two strangers. One stranger was an economically underprivileged student requiring help (high-empathy condition); the other stranger was a student with no upsetting information to induce empathic concern (low-empathy condition). ERP results showed that the valence effect of the feedback-related negativity (FRN) was larger when participants exhibited high empathic concern than when they did not. The FRN responses to strangers' outcomes in the high-empathy condition were as strong as those to their own outcomes. The P300 showed no differences between the low- and high-empathy conditions. These findings indicate that empathic concern could modulate the early stage of outcome processing, implying empathic emotional/altruistic motivational impacts of others' outcomes.

Social Incentives Anticipation and Consummation: Investigating Neural Activity in Women Using Methamphetamine

Individuals with methamphetamine use disorder are considered to have enhanced reactivity to rewards or drug cues. However, whether this holds true in the social incentives processing is still unclear. The current study investigated the electroencephalographical (EEG) evidence of social incentives processing in women with methamphetamine use disorder (MA group, n = 19) and in a healthy control group (HC group, n = 20) using social incentive delay (SID) tasks. In the SID, participants received a "Like" (e.g., thumbs up) or "Unlike" (e.g., thumbs down) from WeChat emojis as social incentives, or neutral feedback. During the anticipation stage, the Cue-P3 and stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) were larger for the social incentives condition than for the neutral condition. During the consummation stage, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) was marginally significantly larger in the HC group than the MA group for the social incentive condition, whereas there was no significant difference between the groups for neutral condition. Interestingly, the FB-P3 was larger for social positive feedback than for social negative feedback in the MA group, but not in HC group. Furthermore, only the HC group showed significant positive correlation between the anticipatory event-related brain potential (ERP, such as Cue-P3) and the consummatory ERP (FB-P3) in the social incentive condition. The findings suggest that women with MA use disorder have a blunted neural response to the processing of social incentives and a blunted neural response to negative social feedback, which helps to elucidate the neural mechanisms of social incentives processing in individuals with MA use disorder.

Your Performance Is My Concern: A Perspective-Taking Competition Task Affects ERPs to Opponent's Outcomes

Previous research has shown that people have more empathic responses to in-group members and more schadenfreude to out-group members. As a dimension of cognitive empathy, perspective-taking has been considered to be related to the enhancement of empathy. We tried to combine these effects through manipulation of a competitive task with opponents and an in-group partner and investigated the potential effect of in-group bias or the perspective-taking effect on outcome evaluation. We hypothesized that the neural activities would provide evidence of in-group bias. We tested it with a simple gambling observation task and recorded subjects' electroencephalographic (EEG) signals. Our results showed that the opponent's loss evoked larger feedback-related negativity (FRN) and smaller P300 activity than the partner's loss condition, and there was a win vs. loss differential effect in P300 for the opponent only. The principal component analysis (PCA) replicated the loss vs. win P300 effect to opponent's performance. Moreover, the correlation between the inclusion of the other in the self (IOS) scores and FRN suggests perspective-taking may induce greater monitoring to opponent's performance, which increases the win vs. loss differentiation brain response to the out-group agent. Our results thus provide evidence for the enhanced attention toward out-group individuals after competition manipulation, as well as the motivation significance account of FRN.

Modulation of feedback processing by social context in social anxiety disorder (SAD)-an event-related potentials (ERPs) study

The ability to learn from feedback, especially under social scrutiny, is an essential prerequisite for successful interaction with the environment. Patients suffering from social anxiety disorder (SAD) have been proposed to show altered processing of and learning from feedback, especially depending on social context. However, the neural basis and behavioral consequences of altered reinforcement learning in SAD are not clear yet. In the present event-related potentials (ERPs) study, 34 SAD patients and 30 healthy control subjects (HC) performed an adapted version of a probabilistic feedback learning task in two distinct social conditions. In the observation condition, participants were observed by a confederate; in the control condition, they performed the task without being observed. Patients as compared to healthy controls experienced more subjective discomfort under social observation. Moreover, they showed better learning from negative feedback in the control condition, but reduced learning from negative feedback in the observation condition. This effect correlated with reduced differentiation of positive and negative feedback in the time range of the feedback-related negativity (FRN) under high action-feedback contingency. In addition, SAD patients demonstrated increased FRN amplitudes in the first half of the observation condition, in particular to positive feedback. The present results demonstrate that processing of and learning from feedback are altered in SAD, especially under social scrutiny. In particular, it appears that SAD patients do not process positive information adequately on the neural level, which may impair their ability to differentiate between negative and positive outcomes.

The pursuit of social acceptance: aberrant conformity in social anxiety disorder

The defining pathological features of social anxiety disorder primarily concern the social landscape, yet few empirical studies have examined the potentially aberrant behavioral and neural patterns in this population using socially interactive paradigms. We addressed this issue by investigating the behavioral and neural patterns associated with social conformity in patients with social anxiety disorder. We recorded event-related potentials when healthy subjects (n = 19), and patients with social anxiety disorder (n = 20) made attractiveness judgements of unfamiliar others, while at the same time, being exposed to congruent/incongruent peer ratings. Afterwards, participants were asked to rerate the same faces without the presence of peer ratings. When compared with healthy controls, social anxiety disorder patients exhibited more positive attitudes to unfamiliar others and conformed more with peers-higher feedback. These behavioral effects were in parallel with neural responses associated with social conflict in the N400 signal, showing higher conformity to peers-higher feedback compared with peers-lower or peers-agree feedback among social anxiety disorder patients. Our findings provide evidence on the behavioral and neural patterns of social anxiety disorder during social interactions, and support the hypothesis that individuals with social anxiety disorder are more motivated to pursue social acceptance and possibly avoid social rejection.

Social value orientation modulates context-based social comparison preference in the outcome evaluation: An ERP study

Social value orientation (SVO) is a personality trait that is closely associated with social comparison preference. However, little is known about how the different types of SVO (i.e., proself vs. prosocial) modulate the behaviour and neural underpinnings of its interaction with social context. In the present study, we examined electrophysiological correlates captured when individuals with different SVOs engaged in a gambling game with two other players (a socially disliking player, person A, vs. a socially liking player, person B). Three main findings are reported in our study. 1) Social comparison effects were manifested in feedback-related negativity (FRN) (the most negative FRN was expressed in the large difference condition, and the least negative FRN was expressed in the even condition), and this effect was modulated by both the win/loss context and SVO. That is, in a self-win context, FRN exhibited a social comparison effect for both prosocials and proselfs. In the self-loss condition, only prosocials displayed this effect. 2) Both groups displayed an enhanced FRN to person A's (the disliked player's) loss compared with the FRN to A's win in the self-win context, whereas only prosocials displayed a more negative FRN to A's win compared to A's loss in the self-loss context. 3) There was a social liking effect, but not a social comparison effect, on the P300, showing that for prosocials only, winning with a socially liking player elicited an increased P300 compared to winning with a disliking player. These findings suggest that the influences of SVO on social comparison are automatic and context dependent, which is reflected by a semi-automatic FRN in which prosocials are sensitive to others' wins or losses in both the self-win and self-loss contexts, whereas proselfs are not interested in others' outcomes in the self-loss context. Furthermore, interpersonal relationships affected the P300 for prosocials when they won but had no effect on the proselfs. This work sheds light on the neural basis of outcome evaluation in multiple social contexts and its individual differences in automatic social comparison situations.

Abstinent Heroin Addicts Tend to Take Risks: ERP and Source Localization

Abnormal decision making is a behavioral characteristic of drug addiction. Indeed, drug addicts prefer immediate rewards at the expense of future interests. Assessing the neurocognitive basis of decision-making related to drug dependence, combining event-related potential (ERP) analysis and source localization techniques, may provide new insights into understanding decision-making deficits in drug addicts and further guide withdrawal treatment. In this study, EEG was performed in 20 abstinent heroin addicts (AHAs) and 20 age-, education- and gender-matched healthy controls (HCs) while they participated in a simple two-choice gambling task (99 vs. 9). Our behavioral results showed that AHAs tend to select higher-risk choices compared with HCs (i.e., more "99" choices than "9"). ERP results showed that right hemisphere preponderance of stimulus-preceding negativity was disrupted in AHAs, but not in HCs. Feedback-related negativity of difference wave was higher in AHAs than HCs, with the P300 amplitude associated with risk magnitude and valence. Using source localization that allows identification of abnormal brain activity in consequential cognitive stages, including the reward expectation and outcome evaluation stages, we found abnormalities in both behavioral and neural responses on gambling in AHAs. Taken together, our findings suggest AHAs have risk-prone tendency and dysfunction in adaptive decision making, since they continue to choose risky options even after accruing considerable negative scores, and fail to shift to a safer strategy to avoid risk. Such abnormal decision-making bias to risk and immediate reward seeking may be accompanied by abnormal reward expectation and evaluation in AHAs, which explains their high risk-seeking and impulsivity.

Behavioral and EEG responses to social evaluation: A two-generation family study on social anxiety

Social anxiety disorder is an invalidating psychiatric disorder characterized by extreme fear and avoidance of one or more social situations in which patients might experience scrutiny by others. The goal of this two-generation family study was to delineate behavioral and electrocortical endophenotypes of social anxiety disorder related to social evaluation. Nine families of patients with social anxiety disorder (their spouse and children, and siblings of these patients with spouse and children) performed a social judgment paradigm in which they believed to be evaluated by peers. For each peer, participants indicated their expectation about the evaluative outcome, after which they received social acceptance or rejection feedback. Task behavior, as well as the feedback-related EEG brain potentials (N1, FRN, P3) and theta power were tested as candidate endophenotypes based on two criteria: co-segregation with social anxiety disorder within families and heritability. Results indicated that reaction time for indicating acceptance-expectations might be a candidate behavioral endophenotype of social anxiety disorder, possibly reflecting increased uncertainty or self-focused attention and vigilance during the social judgment paradigm. N1 in response to expected rejection feedback and P3 in response to acceptance feedback might be candidate electrocortical endophenotypes of social anxiety disorder, although the heritability analyses did not remain significant after correcting for multiple tests. Increased N1 possibly reflects hypervigilance to socially threatening stimuli, and increased P3 might reflect that positive feedback is more important for, and/or less expected by, participants with social anxiety disorder. Finally, increased feedback-related negativity and theta power in response to unexpected rejection feedback compared to the other conditions co-segregated with social anxiety disorder, but these EEG measures were not heritable. The candidate endophenotypes might play a new and promising role in future research on genetic mechanisms, early detection and/or prevention of social anxiety disorder.

Trait anxiety and probabilistic learning: Behavioral and electrophysiological findings

Anxiety is a negative emotion that affects various aspects of people's daily life. To explain why individuals with high anxiety tend to make suboptimal decisions, we suggest that their learning ability might play an important role. Regarding that anxiety modulates both outcome expectation and attention allocation, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the function of feedback learning should be sensitive to individual level of anxiety. However, previous studies that directly examined this hypothesis were scarce. In this study, forty-two Chinese participants were assigned to a high-trait anxiety (HTA) group or a low-trait anxiety (LTA) group according to their scores in the Trait form of Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T). Both groups finished a reward learning task in which two options were associated with different winning probabilities. The event-related potential (ERP) elicited by outcome feedback during the task was recorded and analyzed. Behavioral results revealed that, when the winning probability was 80% for one option and 20% for another, the HTA group chose the 80% winning option less often than the LTA group at the initial stage (i.e., first 20 trials) of the task, but there was no between-group difference in total number of choice. In addition, HTA participants took more time to make decisions in the 80/20 condition than in the 50/50 condition, but this effect was insignificant in the LTA group. ERP results indicated that anxiety affects learning in two ways. First, compared to their LTA counterparts, HTA participants showed a smaller feedback-related negativity (FRN) in response to negative feedback, indicating the impact of anxiety on outcome expectation. Second, HTA participants showed a larger P3 component in the 80/20 condition than in the 50/50 condition, indicating the impact of anxiety on attention allocation. Accordingly, we suggest that individuals' ability of feedback learning could be negatively modulated by anxiety.

Social dimension and complexity differentially influence brain responses during feedback processing

Recent research emphasizes the importance of social factors during performance monitoring. Thus, the current study investigated the impact of social stimuli -such as communicative gestures- on feedback processing. Moreover, it addressed a shortcoming of previous studies, which failed to consider stimulus complexity as potential confounding factor. Twenty-four volunteers performed a time estimation task while their electroencephalogram was recorded. Either social complex, social non-complex, non-social complex, or non-social non-complex stimuli were used to provide performance feedback. No effects of social dimension or complexity were found for task performance. In contrast, Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) and P300 amplitudes were sensitive to both factors, with larger FRN and P300 amplitudes after social compared to non-social stimuli, and larger FRN amplitudes after complex positive than non-complex positive stimuli. P2 amplitudes were solely sensitive to feedback valence and social dimension. Subjectively, social complex stimuli were rated as more motivating than non-social complex ones. Independently of each other, social dimension and visual complexity influenced amplitude variation during performance monitoring. Social stimuli seem to be perceived as more salient, which is corroborated by P2, FRN and P300 results, as well as by subjective ratings. This could be explained due to their given relevance during every day social interactions.

Cognitive behavioural therapy attenuates the enhanced early facial stimuli processing in social anxiety disorders: an ERP investigation

Background

Previous studies of patients with social anxiety have demonstrated abnormal early processing of facial stimuli in social contexts. In other words, patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) tend to exhibit enhanced early facial processing when compared to healthy controls. Few studies have examined the temporal electrophysiological event-related potential (ERP)-indexed profiles when an individual with SAD compares faces to objects in SAD. Systematic comparisons of ERPs to facial/object stimuli before and after therapy are also lacking. We used a passive visual detection paradigm with upright and inverted faces/objects, which are known to elicit early P1 and N170 components, to study abnormal early face processing and subsequent improvements in this measure in patients with SAD.

Methods

Seventeen patients with SAD and 17 matched control participants performed a passive visual detection paradigm task while undergoing EEG. The healthy controls were compared to patients with SAD pre-therapy to test the hypothesis that patients with SAD have early hypervigilance to facial cues. We compared patients with SAD before and after therapy to test the hypothesis that the early hypervigilance to facial cues in patients with SAD can be alleviated.

Results

Compared to healthy control (HC) participants, patients with SAD had more robust P1–N170 slope but no amplitude effects in response to both upright and inverted faces and objects. Interestingly, we found that patients with SAD had reduced P1 responses to all objects and faces after therapy, but had selectively reduced N170 responses to faces, and especially inverted faces. Interestingly, the slope from P1 to N170 in patients with SAD was flatter post-therapy than pre-therapy. Furthermore, the amplitude of N170 evoked by the facial stimuli was correlated with scores on the interaction anxiousness scale (IAS) after therapy.

Conclusions

Our results did not provide electrophysiological support for the early hypervigilance hypothesis in SAD to faces, but confirm that cognitive-behavioural therapy can reduce the early visual processing of faces. These findings have potentially important therapeutic implications in the assessment and treatment of social anxiety.

Trial registration HEBDQ2014021

Impulsive personality dimensions are associated with altered behavioral performance and neural responses in the monetary incentive delay task

Individual differences in dimensions of impulsivity personality including disinhibition and sensation seeking modulate approach responses to reinforcing stimuli, such as drugs and money. The current study examined the effects of monetary incentive on both behavioral performance and electrophysiological activity among individuals varying in disinhibition and sensation seeking. The monetary incentive delay (MID) task was completed under electroencephalogram (EEG) recording. Behavioral data showed that higher disinhibition and sensation-seeking were associated with lower performance accuracy. Event-related potential (ERP) data showed that high reinforcement cues elicited a larger late positive component (LPC) than other conditions among high disinhibition participants, indicating its strong emotional influence. Additionally, in the neutral incentive condition, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) elicited by correct outcomes was larger than that elicited by incorrect outcomes in the high disinhibition group only. This novel finding indicates that high disinhibition participants were less likely to expect correct outcomes compared to incorrect outcomes in the neutral incentive condition. Finally, the P3 component elicited by outcome presentation showed an interaction between two impulsivity dimensions; when disinhibition level was low, the P3 was larger among high than low sensation seeking participants.

Response bias-related impairment of early subjective face discrimination in social anxiety disorders: An event-related potential study

Considerable research has shown that social anxiety disorder (SAD) is accompanied by various negative cognitive biases, such as social feedback expectancy bias, memory bias, and interpretation bias. However, whether the memory bias in individuals with SAD is actually a manifestation of response bias, and whether such response bias is associated with deficits in face discrimination, remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated response bias (i.e., a tendency to recognize more negative evaluations) to faces with positive (social acceptance) or negative (social rejection) social evaluations in individuals with SAD and healthy controls (HCs) using event-related potentials (ERPs). Behavioral results revealed significant group differences in response bias in the forced-choice recall task, but no difference in overall memory accuracy. ERP results demonstrated that HCs showed a larger N170 to faces that had rejected them as compared to those that had accepted them, but this effect was not evident in the SAD group. Further analysis showed that response bias was correlated with the ΔN170 (rejected - accepted) amplitude. We concluded that the response bias in individuals with SAD is resulted from impairments in early discrimination of social faces, as reflected by the absent early N170 differentiation effect, which was associated with their combined negative biases.