PROJECT SUMMARY Social anxiety disorder is an impairing condition that typically emerges during adolescence, affecting about 10% of the population. Models of social anxiety (SA) elucidate excessive self-focus and sensitivity to mistakes as factors that negatively impact quality of life. Using traditional cognitive neuroscience paradigms, prior work has identified neural measures associated with enhanced self-detection of errors (Error Monitoring), that predicts SA, as well as anxiety more generally. However, a major challenge with translational interventions developed from cognitive neuroscience paradigms is the transfer to ecologically valid settings. There is a critical need for the design and validation of novel tasks/protocols to identify and reliably measure brain-based therapeutic targets for SA within ecologically valid, “real-world” settings that are applicable to youth. In line with our long-term goal of developing brain-based interventions for adolescent SA, the purpose of this proposal is to optimize and validate a novel, ecologically-valid task that will reliably assess neural and behavioral measures associated with social anxiety. We propose a sequential, multi-study project that leverages a mixed-methods approach to optimize and validate our novel Natural Reading task and demonstrate its utility in predicting SA. By developing an ecologically-valid paradigm early in the experimental therapeutics process, we increase the probability of successful transfer of effects in future interventions that target measures captured by this novel task; in this way, our proposal is strongly aligned with the Institute’s mission to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses. We propose two aims: (1) a pilot study to optimize the design of our novel Natural Reading task and (2) a second study to establish the reliability and predictive power of the Natural Reading task in relation to SA. In Study 1, 10 youths (13-17 yrs., 5 high and 5 low SA) will perform the Natural Reading task and a traditional Flanker task, both alone and while under social observation by a peer. To investigate experiential aspects of task completion, including participants' perceptions and self-assessed task performance, qualitative methods will be employed in the analysis of semi-structured interview data. Qualitative results will be leveraged to optimize design of the Natural Reading task prior to proceeding with Study 2 data collection (Aim 2). For Study 2, within a second sample of 80 youth (13-17 yrs.), participants will perform an optimized version of the Natural Reading task and a traditional Flanker task, alone and under peer observation. Neural measures of Error Monitoring, along with associated behavioral measures, will be extracted to perform quantitative analyses. Hypothesis 2A: Both tasks will exhibit acceptable levels of reliability in neural and behavioral measures. Hypothesis 2B: Within each task, measures of Error Monitoring extracted from the ...