Department of Learning Disabilities, Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa Haifa, Israel.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2012 Oct 15;6:279. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00279. eCollection 2012.
Math anxiety, defined as a negative affective response to mathematics, is suggested as a strong antecedent for the low visibility of women in the science and engineering workforce. However, the assumption of gender differences in math anxiety is still being studied and results are inconclusive, probably due to the use of explicit measures such as direct questionnaires. Thus, our primary objective was to investigate the effects of math anxiety on numerical processing in males and females by using a novel affective priming task as an indirect measure. Specifically, university students (23 males and 30 females) completed a priming task in which an arithmetic equation was preceded by one of four types of priming words (positive, neutral, negative, or related to mathematics). Participants were required to indicate whether the equation (simple math facts based on addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division) was true or false. People are typically found to respond to target stimuli more rapidly after presentation of an affectively related prime than after an affectively unrelated one. In the current study, shorter response latencies for positive as compared to negative affective primes were found in the male group. An affective priming effect was found in the female group as well, but with a reversed pattern. That is, significantly shorter response latencies were observed in the female group for negative as compared to positive targets. That is, for females, negative affective primes act as affectively related to simple arithmetic problems. In contrast, males associated positive affect with simple arithmetic. In addition, only females with lower or insignificant negative affect toward arithmetic study at faculties of mathematics and science. We discuss the advantages of examining pure anxiety factors with implicit measures which are free of response factors. In addition it is suggested that environmental factors may enhance the association between math achievements and math anxiety in females.
数学焦虑被定义为对数学的消极情感反应，被认为是女性在科学和工程领域中地位低下的一个重要原因。然而，数学焦虑性别差异的假设仍在研究中，结果尚无定论，这可能是由于使用了直接问卷等明确的测量方法。因此，我们的主要目的是通过使用一种新颖的情感启动任务作为间接测量方法，来研究数学焦虑对男性和女性数值处理的影响。具体来说，我们让大学生（23 名男性和 30 名女性）完成一个启动任务，在这个任务中，一个算术方程之前会出现四个类型的启动词之一（积极、中性、消极或与数学有关）。参与者需要判断这个方程（基于加、减、乘、除的简单数学事实）是真还是假。人们通常会在呈现与情感相关的启动词后，比呈现与情感无关的启动词更快地对目标刺激做出反应。在本研究中，与消极情感启动词相比，男性组对积极情感启动词的反应速度更快。女性组也出现了情感启动效应，但模式相反。也就是说，与积极目标相比，女性组对消极目标的反应速度明显更快。也就是说，对于女性来说，消极的情感启动词与简单的算术问题在情感上是相关的。相比之下，男性则将积极的情感与简单的算术联系起来。此外，只有那些对数学和科学系的数学学习有较低或不显著的消极情绪的女性才有这种影响。我们讨论了使用不包含反应因素的内隐测量方法来检验纯粹的焦虑因素的优势。此外，还提出环境因素可能会增强女性数学成绩和数学焦虑之间的联系。
