The effect of trait anxiety and situational stress on working memory capacity

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Abstract

Individuals were divided into high and low trait anxiety groups and were exposed to 10 min of a stressful environment (a video game competition) or a nonstressful environment. Their subsequent performance on word span and reading span tasks was examined. Unlike the word span task, which measures short-term storage capacity, the reading span task measures storage and manipulation capacity. No differences between groups were found on word span performance. In contrast, there were interactive effects of trait anxiety and situational stress on reading span performance. The performance of the high anxiety subjects decreased in the stressful condition. However, the high anxiety subjects performed better than the low anxiety subjects in the nonstressful condition. These data provide direct evidence for changes in working memory capacity resulting from the joint effects of trait anxiety and situational stress.

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