"Cognitive models of Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) state that an imbalance between attention bias (AB) and cognitive control (CC) maintain anxious symptoms. Event-related potentials (ERPs) serve as a precise index to assess these processes. The current study aimed to examine change in the P1 and N2 as indices of AB and CC within Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Attention Bias Modification (ABM) in individuals diagnosed with SAD. There were two primary aims -- (1) to examine change in the P1 and N2 to the faces and probe in the dot probe task, and (2) to examine whether changes in ERPs predict symptom change. The sample consisted of 50 adult patients diagnosed with SAD, who were randomly assigned to CBT (n = 33) or ABM (n = 17). For the first aim, multi-level models (MLM) were used to estimate growth curves for each ERP. The results revealed an increase in the N2 to the faces over time for both groups (b = -.38, p = .02) at post-treatment. No other ERP changes reached significance (all p's > .09). For the second aim, individual growth slopes of ERPs and symptoms were correlated with each other, however there were no relationships between ERPs and symptom change (all p's > .40). Lagged MLMs with ERPs as predictors of symptoms demonstrated that a smaller N2 at one assessment related to more avoidance symptoms at the next assessment for the ABM group only (b = -1.23, p = .02). These results signify the need for reliable methods to assess AB, as well as increased specificity of CC processes that are targeted and exercised within treatment contexts."--Page ii.
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