Edwards Mark S, Moore Philippa, Champion James C, Edwards Elizabeth J
a School of Psychology , Bond University , Gold Coast Q 4229 , Australia.
Anxiety Stress Coping. 2015;28(1):1-16. doi: 10.1080/10615806.2014.911846. Epub 2014 Apr 29.
Attentional Control Theory (ACT) predicts that trait anxiety and situation stress combine to reduce performance efficiency on tasks requiring rapid shifts in attention. Recent evidence has also suggested that working memory capacity (WMC) might moderate this relationship. We controlled for methodological difficulties in the existing literature to investigate the relationships between trait anxiety, situational stress, and WMC on attentional shifting.
Seventy undergraduate students participated in the study. Trait anxiety was operationalized using questionnaire scores, situational stress was manipulated through a pressured counting task, and WMC was based on performance on the Automated Operation Span Task (AOSPAN). The shifting task involved a modified version of the Sternberg paradigm as the primary task and an oddball tone-discrimination task as the secondary task. Dependent variables were performance effectiveness (accuracy) and processing efficiency (accuracy divided by response time) on the secondary task.
There was no effect of anxiety, stress, or WMC in predicting performance effectiveness; however, a significant three-way interaction on processing efficiency was observed. At higher WMC, anxiety and situational stress were not associated with processing efficiency. Conversely, at lower WMC, higher trait anxiety was associated with poorer efficiency but only for those who reported higher situational stress; for those who reported lower situational stress higher trait anxiety predicted facilitated efficiency.
Results are interpreted with respect to ACT and directions for future research are discussed.
注意力控制理论（ACT）预测，特质焦虑和情境压力共同作用会降低在需要快速注意力转移的任务上的表现效率。近期证据还表明，工作记忆容量（WMC）可能会调节这种关系。我们控制了现有文献中的方法学难题，以研究特质焦虑、情境压力和WMC在注意力转移方面的关系。
70名本科生参与了该研究。特质焦虑通过问卷得分来衡量，情境压力通过一项限时计数任务来操控，WMC基于自动化操作广度任务（AOSPAN）的表现。转移任务包括一个修改版的斯特恩伯格范式作为主要任务，以及一个异常刺激音调辨别任务作为次要任务。因变量是次要任务的表现有效性（准确性）和处理效率（准确性除以反应时间）。
焦虑、压力或WMC在预测表现有效性方面没有影响；然而，在处理效率上观察到了显著的三因素交互作用。在较高的WMC水平下，焦虑和情境压力与处理效率无关。相反，在较低的WMC水平下，较高的特质焦虑与较差的效率相关，但仅针对那些报告情境压力较高的人；对于那些报告情境压力较低的人，较高的特质焦虑预示着效率提高。
根据ACT对结果进行了解释，并讨论了未来研究的方向。
