Song Jintao, Chang Lei, Zhou Renlai
Department of Psychology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China.
Psychophysiology. 2022 Feb;59(2):e13965. doi: 10.1111/psyp.13965. Epub 2021 Nov 8.
This study examined the effects of test anxiety on working memory capacity. Studies have demonstrated that individuals with trait social anxiety disorder exhibit increased visual working memory capacity and that those with trait anxiety exhibit decreased working memory capacity. Test anxiety may also induce unique effects on individuals' working memory capacity, and we thus employed the change detection task to explore such effects. Participants were divided into high- and low-test anxiety groups. We used K score and contralateral delay activity (CDA) amplitude to measure working memory capacity, focusing on processing effectiveness and efficiency. The study results revealed that deficits in the working memory capacity of individuals in the high test anxiety group manifested in the CDA amplitude rather than in the K score. The CDA amplitude of the high test anxiety group did not increase after load 3, and that of the low test anxiety group did not increase after load 4. No difference was observed in the K scores of the two groups. The study concluded that test anxiety impairs processing efficiency but not processing effectiveness.
本研究考察了考试焦虑对工作记忆容量的影响。研究表明，患有特质社交焦虑症的个体视觉工作记忆容量增加，而患有特质焦虑的个体工作记忆容量下降。考试焦虑也可能对个体的工作记忆容量产生独特影响，因此我们采用变化检测任务来探究此类影响。参与者被分为高考试焦虑组和低考试焦虑组。我们使用K分数和对侧延迟活动（CDA）幅度来测量工作记忆容量，重点关注处理效果和效率。研究结果显示，高考试焦虑组个体的工作记忆容量缺陷体现在CDA幅度上，而非K分数上。高考试焦虑组在负荷3后CDA幅度未增加，低考试焦虑组在负荷4后CDA幅度未增加。两组的K分数未观察到差异。研究得出结论，考试焦虑会损害处理效率，但不会损害处理效果。
