The effect of training mental control of emotional information on individuals with elevated social anxiety

The intervention is working memory (WM) training using emotional stimuli. The training utilises a dual n-back task delivered on a computer via the internet to an individual participant, and the task has been designed to improve the mental control of emotional information. Participants will be required to simultaneously monitor visual stimuli on the computer screen (negative emotional faces) and auditory stimuli through earphones (negative emotional words). Participants will be required to indicate via button presses whether presented visual stimuli match previously presented visual stimuli n stimuli presentations back, and a similar requirement will apply to the auditory stimuli. When participants successfully master n = 1, the task increases in difficulty to n = 2, and so forth. In the current study, there will be six 10-minute training sessions, with one session per day over 6 consecutive days (with the exception of weekends). Each training session will be conducted in a testing room at Western Sydney University. A researcher trained to deliver the training task will administer the task to participants. Adherence will be monitored by the researcher in terms of the number of training sessions completed.