Background:
Studies of neuropsychological function in social phobia have focused on attentional processes, memory function, judgment and interpretation biases, but findings have been conflicting. Differences in clinical characteristics or variation in testing paradigms and tasks may account for the inconsistencies. This study aimed to assess several cognitive functions, including verbal declarative memory, working memory, verbal fluency and recognition memory for visuospatial information.
Methods:
Thirty adults who met DSM-IV criteria for social phobia and 27 age- and gender-matched healthy controls aged between 18 and 65 years completed neuropsychological testing. Participants were recruited by means of newspaper advertisements. Severity of social phobia was rated using the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. Participants completed a battery of neuropsychological tests including the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, spatial span, spatial recognition memory, spatial working memory, digit span, and verbal fluency and a verbal memory task comprising nonsense words. The National Adult Reading Test was used to estimate premorbid verbal IQ.
Results:
There were no significant group differences on any domain of function, including verbal learning and memory, attention, working memory, verbal fluency, visuospatial functioning or psychomotor speed.
Conclusions:
Social phobia was not associated with neuropsychological impairment, but clinical characteristics of the sample may account for this. Patients were high-functioning individuals with mild to moderate social phobia who had not specifically sought help for social phobia.
