Cognitive Load and Emotional Flanker Performance in Individuals with Social Anxiety and Elevated Non-Social Anxiety Symptoms

To investigate the modulating effect of cognitive load on emotional conflict-related attentional regulation of social evaluative information in individuals with social anxiety, and to clarify the differences in affective attentional modulation patterns between individuals with social anxiety and those with elevated non-social anxiety symptoms. A total of 61 participants were divided into three groups (social anxiety group: n = 19; elevated non-social anxiety symptom groups: n = 21; non-anxious group: n = 21) based on scores of the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS), Social Phobia Scale (SPS), and Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). A dual-task paradigm combining an emotional Flanker task and a digit recognition task was used to manipulate cognitive load (high vs. low), and repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was adopted to analyze the differences in reaction time, accuracy rate, and emotional congruency effects among the three groups under different conditions. Statistical results showed that the reaction time for digit recognition was significantly longer, and the accuracy rate was significantly lower under high cognitive load than under low cognitive load ( ps < 0.05), confirming the effective manipulation of cognitive load. In terms of reaction time, the social anxiety group responded significantly faster than the elevated non-social anxiety symptom groups and the non-anxious group ( ps < 0.05). For the emotional congruency effects, under low cognitive load, the emotional congruency effects of the social anxiety group and the elevated non-social anxiety symptom groups were significantly larger than those of the non-anxious group (ps < 0.05); under high cognitive load, there was no significant difference among the three groups ( ps > 0.05). The emotional congruency effects of the social anxiety group did not differ significantly between high and low cognitive load (p > 0.05), while that of the elevated non-social anxiety symptom groups was significantly smaller under high cognitive load ( p < 0.01). High cognitive load significantly modified the emotional conflict response patterns of individuals with elevated non-social anxiety symptoms, while the emotional congruency effects of individuals with social anxiety symptoms remained stable across load conditions. The present findings differentiate the context-dependent emotional processing characteristics of distinct anxiety symptom profiles, refine the theoretical boundaries of Attentional Control Theory and the Interaction of Emotion and Cognition Theory, and provide empirical support for designing targeted attentional regulation intervention strategies for individuals with social anxiety symptoms.