Effect of test anxiety on visual working memory capacity using evidence from event-related potentials

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.

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

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.