The objective of this preliminary study was to investigate the interaction between working memory and social cognition in adolescents and young adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI). It was hypothesized that participants with or without TBI would better recognize social information when working memory or social cognitive load was low and that adolescents and young adults with TBI would be more affected by increased cognitive demand than their uninjured peers.

In this experimental study, eight adolescents and young adults with complicated mild-severe TBI (aged 14–22 years) and eight age- and sex-matched typically developing (TD) adolescents completed computer-based n-back tasks requiring recognition of either face identity or facial affect, with 0-back, 1-back and 2-back conditions.

The TBI group had lower scores overall than the TD group, and scores for both groups were lower for affect recognition than identity recognition. Scores for both groups were lower in conditions with a higher working memory load. There was a significant group by working memory interaction, with larger group differences in high-working memory conditions.

Adolescents and young adults with TBI are at risk for social cognitive impairments and the ability to recognize affect may be influenced by working memory demands.

这项初步研究的目的是调查患有创伤性脑损伤 (TBI) 的青少年和年轻人的工作记忆与社会认知之间的相互作用。据推测，当工作记忆或社会认知负荷较低时，患有或未患有 TBI 的参与者会更好地识别社交信息，并且患有 TBI 的青少年和年轻人比未受伤的同龄人更容易受到认知需求增加的影响。

在这项实验研究中，八名患有复杂的轻度至重度 TBI 的青少年和年轻人（年龄 14-22 岁）和八名年龄和性别匹配的正常发育 (TD) 青少年完成了基于计算机的 n-back 任务，需要识别任一张脸身份或面部影响，具有 0-back、1-back 和 2-back 条件。

TBI 组的总体得分低于 TD 组，并且两组的情感识别得分低于身份识别得分。在工作记忆负荷较高的情况下，两组的分数都较低。工作记忆交互存在显着组别，在高工作记忆条件下组别差异较大。

患有 TBI 的青少年和年轻人存在社会认知障碍的风险，识别情感的能力可能会受到工作记忆需求的影响。