Wei H, De Beuckelaer A, Zhou R. Enhanced or impoverished recruitment of top-down attentional control of inhibition in test anxiety.
Biol Psychol 2021;
161:108070. [PMID:
33722566 DOI:
10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108070]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2020] [Revised: 02/28/2021] [Accepted: 03/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
Controversy exists as to whether high test anxiety (HTA) individuals, when completing an inhibition task, increase or decrease top-down attentional control resources to maintain high task performance. In a flanker task experiment, individuals were confronted with a threat or no threat context in combination with a low or a high working memory load. The N2 measured top-down attentional control resource allocation. The results showed that, in comparison to low test anxiety (LTA) individuals, HTA individuals had larger N2 amplitudes in a no threat condition, especially for incongruent trials. Also, in a threat condition when under high working memory load, HTA individuals had smaller incongruent N2 amplitudes. These findings support the conclusion that HTA individuals tend to enhance recruitment of top-down attentional control of inhibition. Additionally, they may also fail to compensate for impaired inhibition as indicated by impoverished top-down attentional control resources when demands on attentional control are high.
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