Participants completed 1 session of 8 Perceptual Retraining blocks following an instructional presentation.

Participants completed 1 session of 8 blocks of Gender Discrimination Task.

Participants completed 3 sessions of Perceptual Retraining following an instructional presentation. The first session included 6 blocks of perceptual training, and the second session included 12 blocks of perceptual training. No perceptual training was performed in session 3. Sessions were spaced approximately 7 days apart, with a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 14 days apart.

Participants completed 1 session of 6 Perceptual Retraining blocks following an instructional presentation.

Participants completed 3 sessions of a Gender Discrimination Task. The first session included 6 blocks of gender discrimination task, and the second session included 12 blocks of the gender discrimination task. No gender discrimination task was performed in session 3. Sessions were spaced approximately 7 days apart, with a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 14 days apart.

Participants viewed faces varying in their expression of anger and were asked to identify if the face was angry or neutral via button press. Participants were provided with feedback if their categorization of the face as neutral or angry was correct. Each participant was assigned 4 levels of angry faces based on their decision point of anger detection in faces. Faces were selected based on the closest existing anger morph to the category boundary; for example, a decision point of 40% anger was closest to the 38% anger face, and so the faces used would have been 17%, 31%, 45%, and 59% anger. For this example, responses of "neutral" to the 31% angry face would be marked as correct, whereas a similar response to the 45% angry face would be incorrect, as it was above their decision point.

Participants will be asked to respond if they detected anger in faces varying in their levels of anger expression. This task is used to determine a perceptual bias for threat/anger in faces that is related to increases in social anxiety symptoms, and assess for improvements in the categorization of angry vs. neutral faces. that align with modulations of neural responses (MEG and EEG evidence) indexing perceptual processing of the faces following perceptual retraining.

Neural activity will be recorded using EEG and MEG to measure neural processes underpinning categorical perception of anger in faces. Changes in this neural perceptual index will be assessed following perceptual retraining to provide a neural mechanism underpinning behavioral improvements in perceptual categorization and subsequent reductions in anxiety.

Change in social anxiety symptomatology through perceptual retraining