People with social anxiety are extra sensitive to unpleasant outcomes, and this sensitivity contributes to their tendency to avoid social situations. Previous research has linked this learning bias to activity in specific brain regions. Hanjie Liu and Melle van der Molen, from Leiden University, extended this work by examining how communication between brain regions coordinates learning behavior in people with varying levels of social anxiety.
As presented in their JNeurosci paper, the researchers assessed the brain activity of 146 people with different levels of social anxiety as they performed a task either alone or under scrutiny. People with more social anxiety had stronger communication between brain regions that was sensitive to the learning context. This increased communication supported performance when learning demands were relatively low but hindered performance when the task became more demanding.
Says Liu, "These findings suggest that social anxiety may be accompanied by a heightened sensitivity to the social context when learning. This sensitivity may be helpful when learning is relatively easy, but could become disadvantageous as learning demands increase, potentially disrupting how different brain regions communicate and work together."
