Department of Psychology, Georgetown University, White Gravenor Hall, 37th and O Streets, Washington, DC, 20007, USA.
Department of Education and Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2020 Apr;20(2):309-325. doi: 10.3758/s13415-020-00770-z.
Math anxiety (MA) is associated with negative thoughts and emotions when encountering mathematics, often resulting in under-performance on math tasks. One hypothesized mechanism by which MA affects performance is through anxiety-related increases in working memory (WM) load, diverting resources away from mathematical computations. We examined whether this effect is specific to WM or whether the impact of MA extends to an overall depletion of executive function (EF) resources. In this fMRI experiment, we manipulated two separate factors known to impact EF demands-task-switching (TS) and increased WM load-in order to evaluate how MA relates to behavioral performance and neural activity related to mathematical calculations. Relative to a difficult non-math task (analogies), we observed MA-related deficits in math performance and reduced neural activity in a network of regions in the brain associated with arithmetic processing. In response to TS demands, higher levels of math anxiety were associated with a pattern of avoidance and disengagement. When switching from the control task, high math anxiety (HMA) was associated with disengagement from math trials, speeding through these trials, and exhibiting reduced neural activity in regions associated with arithmetic processing. The effects of math anxiety and WM were most pronounced at the lowest levels of WM load. Overall, the results of this study indicate that the effects of MA are broader than previously demonstrated and provide further insight into how EF deficits in MA might impact recruitment of neural resources that are important for successful math computations.
数学焦虑症（MA）是指在遇到数学问题时产生的负面想法和情绪，通常会导致在数学任务上表现不佳。一种假设的机制是，MA 通过与焦虑相关的工作记忆（WM）负载增加来影响表现，从而将资源从数学计算中转移出来。我们研究了这种影响是否特定于 WM，或者 MA 是否会对执行功能（EF）资源的整体消耗产生影响。在这项 fMRI 实验中，我们操纵了两个已知会影响 EF 需求的独立因素——任务转换（TS）和 WM 负载增加，以评估 MA 与数学计算相关的行为表现和神经活动有何关系。与一项困难的非数学任务（类比）相比，我们观察到 MA 与数学表现相关的缺陷，以及与算术处理相关的大脑区域网络中的神经活动减少。对于 TS 需求，较高的数学焦虑水平与回避和脱离的模式相关。当从控制任务切换时，较高的数学焦虑（HMA）与脱离数学任务相关，快速完成这些任务，并在与算术处理相关的区域中表现出较少的神经活动。MA 和 WM 的影响在 WM 负载最低的情况下最为明显。总体而言，这项研究的结果表明，MA 的影响比以前的研究更广泛，并进一步深入了解 MA 中的 EF 缺陷如何影响对成功数学计算很重要的神经资源的招募。
