The impact of COVID-19 social isolation on aspects of emotional and social cognition

Amy Rachel Bland; Jonathan Paul Roiser; Mitul Ashok Mehta; Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian; Trevor William Robbins; Rebecca Elliott

doi:10.1080/02699931.2021.1892593

The impact of COVID-19 social isolation on aspects of emotional and social cognition

Amy Rachel Bland^*, Jonathan Paul Roiser, Mitul Ashok Mehta, Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Trevor William Robbins, Rebecca Elliott

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

34 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The present study aimed to examine the impact of COVID-19 social isolation upon aspects of emotional and social cognitive function. We predicted that greater impairments in emotional and social cognition would be observed in people who experienced more disruption to their usual social connectivity during COVID-19 social isolation. Healthy volunteers (N = 92) without prior mental health problems completed assessments online in their own homes during the most stringent period of the first COVID-19 “lockdown” in the UK (March–May 2020). Measures included two questionnaires probing levels of social isolation, anxiety levels, as well as five neuropsychological tasks assessing emotional and social cognition. Reduced positive bias in emotion recognition was related to reduced contact with friends, household size and communication method during social isolation. In addition, reduced positive bias for attention to emotional faces was related to frequency of contact with friends during social isolation. Greater cooperative behaviour in an ultimatum game was associated with more frequent contact with both friends and family during social isolation. The present study provides important insights into the detrimental effects of subjective and objective social isolation upon affective cognitive processes.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	49-58
Number of pages	10
Journal	Cognition and Emotion
Volume	36
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2021.1892593
Publication status	Published - 2 Jan 2022

Keywords

COVID-19
mental health
Social cognition
social isolation

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1080/02699931.2021.1892593

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title = "The impact of COVID-19 social isolation on aspects of emotional and social cognition",

abstract = "The present study aimed to examine the impact of COVID-19 social isolation upon aspects of emotional and social cognitive function. We predicted that greater impairments in emotional and social cognition would be observed in people who experienced more disruption to their usual social connectivity during COVID-19 social isolation. Healthy volunteers (N = 92) without prior mental health problems completed assessments online in their own homes during the most stringent period of the first COVID-19 “lockdown” in the UK (March–May 2020). Measures included two questionnaires probing levels of social isolation, anxiety levels, as well as five neuropsychological tasks assessing emotional and social cognition. Reduced positive bias in emotion recognition was related to reduced contact with friends, household size and communication method during social isolation. In addition, reduced positive bias for attention to emotional faces was related to frequency of contact with friends during social isolation. Greater cooperative behaviour in an ultimatum game was associated with more frequent contact with both friends and family during social isolation. The present study provides important insights into the detrimental effects of subjective and objective social isolation upon affective cognitive processes.",

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note = "Funding Information: BJS consults for Cambridge Cognition, Greenfield BioVentures and Cassava Sciences. She receives funding from the Wallitt Foundation and Eton College. Her research is conducted within the NIHR Brain Injury MedTech and in vitro diagnostics Cooperative (MIC, Cambridge) and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (Mental Health and Neurodegeneration Themes). TWR provides consultancy for Cambridge Cognition, Lundbeck, Greenfield Bioventures, Cassava, Takeda and Unilever, and has research grants with Shionogi and GlaxoSmithKline. Funding Information: The authors would like to thank Dr Niki Ray, Professor Paul Holmes and colleagues at Manchester Metropolitan University for supporting this research. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.",

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AU - Elliott, Rebecca

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N2 - The present study aimed to examine the impact of COVID-19 social isolation upon aspects of emotional and social cognitive function. We predicted that greater impairments in emotional and social cognition would be observed in people who experienced more disruption to their usual social connectivity during COVID-19 social isolation. Healthy volunteers (N = 92) without prior mental health problems completed assessments online in their own homes during the most stringent period of the first COVID-19 “lockdown” in the UK (March–May 2020). Measures included two questionnaires probing levels of social isolation, anxiety levels, as well as five neuropsychological tasks assessing emotional and social cognition. Reduced positive bias in emotion recognition was related to reduced contact with friends, household size and communication method during social isolation. In addition, reduced positive bias for attention to emotional faces was related to frequency of contact with friends during social isolation. Greater cooperative behaviour in an ultimatum game was associated with more frequent contact with both friends and family during social isolation. The present study provides important insights into the detrimental effects of subjective and objective social isolation upon affective cognitive processes.

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The impact of COVID-19 social isolation on aspects of emotional and social cognition

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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