Test anxiety impairs filtering ability in visual working memory: Evidence from event-related potentials

Jintao Song; Lei Chang; Renlai Zhou

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2021.05.091

Test anxiety impairs filtering ability in visual working memory: Evidence from event-related potentials

J Affect Disord. 2021 Sep 1:292:700-707. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2021.05.091. Epub 2021 Jun 20.

Authors

Jintao Song¹, Lei Chang², Renlai Zhou³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China.
² Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China.
³ Department of Psychology, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China. Electronic address: rlzhou@nju.edu.cn.

PMID: 34157666
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2021.05.091

Abstract

Attentional control theory regards individuals with high anxiety as having deficits of inhibitory control when faced with distractors, especially under high-load conditions and with threatening distractors. Research on test anxiety has a long history, but the working memory (WM) characteristics of individuals with high test anxiety (HTA) remain unclear. We used two experiments to test the WM filtering ability of individuals with HTA, and the salient results were those of the contralateral delay activity amplitude rather than K score. The first experiment employed neutral distractors. HTA participants filtered distractors under low-load conditions but not under high-load conditions. Participants with low test anxiety (LTA) filtered distractors under high-load conditions but not under low-load conditions. The second experiment utilized threatening distractors. The participants with HTA exhibited deficits in their ability to filter neutral and threatening distractors, whereas the participants with LTA filtered both types of distractor.

Keywords: CDA amplitude; ERPs; K score; Test anxiety; Working memory.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Anxiety
Attention
Evoked Potentials
Humans
Memory, Short-Term*
Test Anxiety*