test-anxiety, inferential reasoning and working memory load

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Test-Anxiety, inferential reasoning andworking memory loadAnne Richards a , Christopher C. French b , Edmund Keogh b & CorrinCarter ba Department of Psychology , Birkbeck College, University ofLondon , Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, UKb Department of Psychology , Goldsmiths College, University ofLondon , UKPublished online: 29 May 2007.

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TEST-ANXIETY, INFERENTIAL REASONING AND WORKING

MEMORY LOAD

ANNE RICHARDSa**, CHRISTOPHER C. FRENCHb, EDMUND KEOGHb and CORRIN CARTERb

‘Department of Psychology, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, London WCIE 7HX, UK; bDepartmmt of Psychology,

Goldrmiths College, University of London, UK

(Received m fural form 7 June 1999)

Subjects high and low in test-anxiety were presented with an inferential reasoning task requiring the verification of necessary and u ~ e c e s a r y inferences. The task was performed whilst holding either two or six digits in memory. On the verification task, the performance of high-test-anxious subjects was slower and less accurate than that of the low-test-anxious subjects. In addition, unnecessary inferences took longer to process than necessary inferences for the high-test-anxiety group only. The high-teat-anxious subjects studied the memory loads for longer than the low-test-anxious group, but their recognition accuracy did not differ. Findings support Eysenck and Calvo’s (Cognition cmd Emotwn, 6,409-434, 1992) processing efficiency theory. The high-test-anxious group’s performance on the sentence verification task was impaired overall, and was particularly impaired whcn performing the unnecessary inference task. However, we also demonstrated that the high-test-anxious group’s performance on a secondary memory task was unimpaired as a result of increased effort.

Keywordv: Test-anxiety; Inferential reasoning Working memory

It is generally accepted that anxiety impairs performance on certain cognitive tasks, particularly difficult tasks. It has traditionally been argued that test-anxiety comprises of at least two main components: worry and emotionality (Liebert and Moms, 1967). Sarason (1984) proposed that womsome thoughts interfere with attention to task-relevant

* Corresponding author.

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information thereby reducing the cognitive resources available for processing and performing the task. Eysenck (1992) is critical of this approach arguing that Sarason’s view of worry is limited to interfering with attentional resources and does not acknowledge the positive aspects of worry which might increase motivation and enhance performance. In addition, Eysenck argues that tasks can be difficult because demands can be made either on processing resources or storage and Sarason3 model fails to distinguish between the two. Humphrey and Revelle’s (1984) model does distinguish between processing resources and storage, but Eysenck argues that the model can be criticized on the grounds that (a) there is an overestimate of the negative motivational influence of anxiety, (b) arousal is less important than Humphrey and Revelle had assumed, and (c) the model assumes that the person is a passive reactor to situations.

Eysenck and Calvo (1992) put forward the processing efficiency theory to account for the effects of state-anxiety on performance. The theory proposes that anxiety influences the working memory system. The working memory system, put forward by Baddeley and Hitch (1974), is said to comprise three, limited capacity, components. The first and most important of these is the modality-free central executive. Second is the articulatory loop, which is employed in the transient storage of verbal information, and third is the visuospatial sketch pad, which is specialised for visual and/or spatial information. Eysenck and Calvo propose that anxious subjects engage in task-irrelevant worry, which in turn pre-empts some of the processing resources of the working memory system. It is argued that anxiety will impair performance on those tasks that require the resources of the working memory system, particularly on tasks requiring the resources of the central executive. Performance on tasks using the articulatory loop will probably be impaired too.

However, although worry uses up some of the resources of working memory, the overall performance of high-test-anxiety subjects may not be different from that of low-test-anxiety subjects. Eysenck and Calvo (1992) suggest that a distinction needs to be made between performance effectiveness and performance efficiency. They propose that worry has a motivational effect, whereby as subjects become aware that their performance is not good, some sort of remedial action is taken. Worrisome subjects may engage in anxiety-reducing behaviour

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ANXIETY, REASONING AND WORKING MEMORY 89

in order to increase the amount of capacity available to perform the task, or they may increase their overall effort in an attempt to increase performance effectiveness. Eysenck and Calvo propose that performance effectiveness is defined as the quality of the performance, and performance efficiency refers to the effectiveness of the performance relative to the amount of processing resource invested in the task, that is, effort.

One prediction which arises from the above theory is that there should be no difference between subjects high and low in test-anxiety performing a task which does not make demands on working memory, whereas anxious subjects should have impaired performance for capacitydemanding tasks. Darke (1988) carried out a series of experiments that are directly relevant to this prediction by employing one inferential reasoning task that he claimed made no demands on working memory and one in which demands were made on the system. In these experiments, each trial comprised three sentences, and the subject was instructed to verify the third sentence as being ‘true’ or ‘false’ in relation to the two earlier sentences. In the first experiment, inferences had to be drawn in order to understand the text, and such inferences are therefore referred to as ‘necessary inferences’. For example, consider the following two sentences: ‘The man climbed the hill. He was very tired‘. It is essential that the reader resolve the antecedent- anaphoric relation of man-he in order to comprehend the sentence. There is evidence that the resolution of antecedent-anaphoric rela- tions occurs during comprehension of the text, and does not involve conscious effort (e.g., Garnham and Oakhill, 1985). Such inferences are necessary in order to integrate the sentences into a comprehensible form. When the third, verification, sentence is presented such as ‘The man was very weary’, no additional inferences have to be made in order to make a ‘true/false’ decision. In this instance, the appropriate response is ‘true’. However, if this third sentence was, for example, ‘The man was very happy’, this would not necessarily follow from the earlier sentences and the appropriate response would be ‘false’. In the second of Darke’s experiments, inferences could be drawn but

they were not necessary for an understanding of the sentences. These inferences are therefore referred to as ‘unnecessary inferences’. So, for example, if the following two sentences were presented ‘Jenny rode down the street. She was very excited’, the antecedent-anaphoric

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relation of Jenny-she has to be resolved in order to fully understand the text. However, other inferences could be made that are not necessary for comprehending the text, such as whether Jenny was riding a bike or a horse. It is argued that unnecessary inferences are only drawn if and when they are required. So, for example, if the verification sentence were ‘Jenny was riding a bike’, then an additional inference has to be drawn as this inference was not necessary to understand the first two sentences as they were read. It is argued that these unnecessary inferences are only drawn when required and that they use processing resources.

Singer (1980) presented subjects with a verification task in which the sentences were (a) explicit, (b) necessary inferential, or (c) unnecessary inferential. He found that the time taken to verify explicit sentences did not differ from the time taken to verify necessary inferential sentences, but the unnecessary inferential sentences took much longer to verify. This was interpreted as indicating that processing necessary inferences occurs on-line, without conscious effort, whereas unnecessary inferences use up working memory resources.

Darke (1988) argues that Singer’s findings are consistent with Shiffrin and Schneider’s (1977) distinction between automatic and controlled processing with the former being non-conscious and non- capacityconsuming, and the latter involving attentional resources. In the first of his experiments, Darke predicted that there would be no differences between the high- and low-test-anxiety subjects in their processing of necessary inferences because, he claimed, processing necessary inferences does not require the resources of working memory. Darke, although essentially predicting the null hypothesis, argued that he found support for Eysenck‘s position (Eysenck, 1979; 1992). In his second experiment, Darke predicted that high-test-anxious subjects would take longer than low-test-anxious subjects would to verify unnecessary inferences as working memory resources are required here. Darke found evidence to support this prediction.

The present experiment is based on those of Darke (1988). Neces- sary and unnecessary inferences were presented in a single experiment. This allows the interaction between test anxiety group and inference type to be examined directly (Darke was unable to examine this interaction as he used two separate experiments). More importantly, Darke failed to provide suficient detail as to how the false sentences were

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constructed for the unnecessary inferences. Darke provides the following example of a false necessary inference:

(1) A trumpet was being played. (2) The musical instrument was very loud. (3) The trumpet was quiet.

It appears that Darke’s false necessary inferences were simply oppo- sites of the true version. However, the problem arises when consider- ing the false responses for the unnecessary inferences. Darke fails to provide an example of such a trial. However, there are logically two possibilities. First, Darke may have used sentences that were obviously false, and these would have been comparable to the false sentences for the necessary inferences. An example of such a trial would be:

(1) The man pounded the nail. (2) He was very tired. (3) The man did not use a hammer.

However, the problem with using sentences constructed in this way is obvious - subjects would be cued into responding ‘false’ by the pres- ence of the negative ‘not’. The alternative construction would be to make subjects respond ‘false’ to any trial where the third sentence was not obviously true. Such an example would be:

(1) The man pounded the nail. (2) He was very tired. (3) The man used a fork.

However, the problem here is that the false sentences for the necessary inferences are obviously false, whereas the ‘not true’ sentences for the unnecessary inferences are simply irrelevant to the information given in the first two sentences. It was for this reason that the set of stimuli for the present investigation were constructed so that for both necessary and unnecessary inferences, the third sentence on Vials requiring ‘not true’ responses were simply irrelevant to the preceding information, to ensure comparability across conditions.

In addition to this, Darke collapsed across true and false responses, which makes it impossible to determine whether subjects were actually making the appropriate inferences. It is almost certain that subjects

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would perform differently on ‘true’ and ‘false’ trials. The present experiment analysed ‘true’ trials only.

Third, a memory load was imposed on subjects in the present experiment. Subjects were required to hold either two digits (low memory load) or six digits (high memory load) in memory whilst performing the task. This enabled us to examine the strategies used by high- and low-test-anxious subjects. It allowed us to examine the time taken by high- and low-test-anxious subjects to study the digit-strings, and then to examine how accurately the digit-strings were retrieved after the sentences had been processed. Darke did use a memory load, which was an integral part of the task. He varied the number of sentences to be processed. For Experiment 1, he found that memory load had no effect for his necessary inferences for reaction time (accuracy data were not fully analysed due to low rate of errors). However, for Experiment 2, Darke found a main effect of memory load for reaction time, with high memory load producing slower performance than low memory load, but not for accuracy.

As stated previously, it has traditionally been argued that test- anxiety comprised at least two main components: worry and emotionality (Liebert and Moms, 1967). However, others argue that test anxiety comprised many more dimensions. Sarason (1984), for example, argues that test-anxiety consists of four main factors relating to worry, test-irrelevant thoughts, tension, and bodily symptoms. Recent confirmatory factor analytical studies of test-anxiety scales have found support for the multidimensional model (e.g., Benson and Bandalos, 1992; Hodapp and Benson, 1997).

The present experiment predicts that high-test-anxious individuals will perform more poorly than low-test-anxious individuals on capacity-demanding tasks. That is, if Darke (1988) is right in his assertion that the necessary inference trials do not require working memory capacity, the two groups should not differ in terms of their performance on such trials, but that the high-test-anxious group relative to the low-test-anxious group should have impaired performance on the unnecessary inference trials. In addition, it is predicted that the high- test-anxious group will have particularly impaired performance relative to the low-test-anxious group when performing the inference task with a high memory load (six digits), but not with a low memory load (two digits) when processing unnecessary inferences.

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As the current study is based upon Darke’s (1988) experiments, subjects were allocated to anxiety groups upon the basis of the same scale as that used in the original experiments, that is, Sarason’s (1972) Test- Anxiety Scale (TAS). It is of interest to consider the relationships between this measure and the general measures of state- and trait- anxiety, such as Spielberger’s State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; Spielberger et al., 1983). The use of multiple regression analysis in the current study addressed this issue. If it is the case that impairments in task performance related to test-anxiety are mediated by changes in state-anxiety, then one might expect that performance would be deter- mined primarily by state anxiety. If, on the other hand, such impairments are primarily related to some other aspect of test-anxiety (e.g., worry, task-irrelevant thoughts) that is not directly associated with state- anxiety, then performance may be unassociated with state-anxiety. Multiple regression analysis will thus allow Eysenck and Calvo’s (1992) processing efficiency theory to be tested both as a general model of anxiety and more specifically as a model of test-anxiety.

METHOD

Subjects

Following Darke (1988), test anxiety was assessed using Sarason’s (1972) TAS. High-test-anxiety subjects were defined as those scoring 25 and over on the TAS and low-test-anxiety subjects as scoring 13 and below. These cut-off points represented the top and bottom 20% of scores from Darke’s experiment (see Darke, 1988). Using these cut- off points, a total of thirty-six subjects (28 females), from a total of fifty-four subjects tested, were allocated to the high- and low-test- anxiety groups.

stimuli

Inferential Reasoning Task

The stimuli consisted of 12 practice passages, 48 critical passages and 24 dummy passages. Responses to half of the critical trials required necessary inferences to be made and the other half required unnecessary inferences.

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Each passage comprised three sentences that were presented consec- utively and were initiated by the subject. All sentences were between four and seven words long. An analysis confirmed that there were no differences in length between sentences in the different conditions.

For the necessary inferences (see Appendix), Sentence 2 always contained an anaphoric reference to the antecedent presented in Sentence 1. Sentence 3 required subjects to perform a verification task. Half of the trials required a ‘true’ response and the other half required a ‘false’ response. Sentence 3 contained either a synonym (for ‘true’ responses), or was irrelevant (for ‘false’ responses). The antecedent- anaphors for the necessary inferences were selected from the following six categories: fruits, animals, birds, flowers, musical instruments, and furniture (see Appendix for stimuli). For the unnecessary inferences, the information in the third sentence referred to an item, event or action that was additional information but was not required to fully integrate Sentences 1 and 2 (true trials). The third sentence of the false trials included an assertion that did not follow from the earlier two sentences (see Appendix).

Twenty-four dummy trials, which required no inferences to be made, were included in the experiment to ensure that subjects did not begin to make unnecessary inferences without paying proper attention to the sentences. In these passages, Sentences 2 and 3 both began with ‘he/she’, in reference to the person named in Sentence 1. Sentence 3 used only information provided in Sentence 2. Again, half of these sentences required a ‘true’ response and the other half a ‘false’ response. An example of a dummy trial is as follows:

Sentence 1: Graham was building a high wall. Sentence 2: He was laying each brick carefully. Sentence 3: He was laying each brick correctly.

There were 12 practice passages, presented prior to the critical passages, which comprised six necessary and six unnecessary inferences to be made.

Each subject was presented with a different random ordering of the experimental trials. Two versions of the computer program were written so that across subjects each passage appeared as both a true and a false trial.

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Menwry Task

A memory task was employed with each passage. A digit-string of either two (low memory load) or six (high memory load) digits were presented before Sentence 1. A second digit-string was presented after the third sentence, and subjects were required to perform a recognition task and decide whether the second string was the same as the first or not. Half of the digit recognition strings were matches and half were mismatches (i.e., one of the digits was changed). The digit-strings were also presented in a random order.

Procedure

Upon arrival, subjects completed the TAS and the state-anxiety questionnaire of STAI (Spielberger et QZ., 1983). Subjects were instructed to hold the digit-string in memory while they performed each task. They were told to read carefully each sentence, and only to move on to the next sentence when they had fully understood the sentence.

Subjects were advised to respond, using the keyboard, ‘yes’ if the third sentence was true or probably true, and ‘no’ if the sentence was false or probably false. The task was explained as follows:

You should note that the final sentence might not always follow with absolute certainty from the first two sentences, but if you feel that it is PROBABLY true on the basis of the information in the first two sentences, you should respond ‘YES’ by pressing the ‘1’ key.

Arthur paid the bus conductor. He hated using public transport. ?? Arthur had some money??

You should respond ‘YES because, although it is possible to pay bus fares using a cheque or a credit card, say, it would be very unlikely that anyone would do so under normal circumstances.

Also, note that when the third sentence does NOT follow from the first two, this does not mean that you will be sure it is false. It only means that it does not follow from the first two sentences.

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For example: A ladybird walked along the table. The insect seemed to know where it was going. ?? The ladybird was in a hurry??

One simply does not know if the ladybird was in a hurry, so ‘NO’ (‘3’) is the correct response (i.e. the third sentence does NOT follow from the first two). Subjects were told to respond to the digit-string by pressing the

same two keys on the keyboard as were used for the sentence- verification task. Subjects were given accuracy feedback on all trials and reaction time feedback for correct trials.

Subjects were instructed to respond as quickly and as accurately as possible. All subjects performed the experiment in a soundproof room under controlled conditions. The experiment was ‘ego-involving’ in the sense that the experiment was conducted in a serious, non-playlike manner.

At the end of the session, subjects completed the state and trait forms of the STAI.

RESULTS

Test-anxiety correlated +0.58 with the first measure of state-anxiety, +0.63 with the second measure of state-anxiety, and +0.77 with trait- anxiety. In order to examine whether any effects obtained should be attributed to test-anxiety rather than to any of the other measures of anxiety, multiple regression analyses were performed. For these analyses, a composite measure of state-anxiety was calculated by taking the average score from the two occasions it was measured.

Subject Characteristics

t Tests were performed on the test-anxiety scores, trait-anxiety scores, and age (see Table I for means and standard deviations) for the two extreme groups. The high-test-anxiety group had higher test-anxiety scores, t(34) = 21.1, p < 0.001, and higher trait-anxiety scores, r(34) = 5 . 6 1 , ~ < 0.001, than the low-test-anxiety group. There were no age differences between the two groups, t(34) = 0.62, n.s.

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TABLE I Mean questionnaire scores for high- and low- test-anxiety subjects (standard deviations in parentheses)

Test-anxiety group

LOW High

Test-anxiety 10.3 (2.1) 29.2 (3.2) State-anxiet y

Pretest 29.4 (7.6) 38.8 (8.2) Post-test 30.6 (8.3) 40.8 (7.3)

Age 23.4 (6.0) 24.8 (7.0) N 19 17

A two-way ANOVA with one between-subjects factor of test- anxiety group (high vs. low) and one within-subjects factor of time (pre- vs. post-test) was performed on the state-anxiety scores. This revealed that the high-test-anxiety group had higher state-anxiety scores than the low group, 41,34) = 15.26, p < 0.001. However, there was no overall change in state anxiety over time, and no interaction with anxiety group.

Memory Load Performance

To assess whether the groups differed in terms of the time spent studying the memory items before proceeding to the inferential reasoning task, an ANOVA was performed. This ANOVA was performed on the items which were later recalled correctly and had test-anxiety group (high vs. low) as a between-subjects factor and memory load (high vs. low) as a within-subjects factor. Subjects studied the high-memory- load items for longer than the low-memory-load items (means of 21 87 and 1617ms, respectively; F(1,34)=7.66,p < 0.01). In addition to this, the high-test-anxiety group spent more time studying the items than the low group (means of 2256 and 1585ms, respectively; F(1,34)= 5.50, p < 0.05). To assess the relative contributions of test-anxiety, trait-anxiety and

state-anxiety, a standard multiple regression analysis was performed on the data set in which the average time taken studying the memory load was the dependent variable and test-anxiety, composite state- anxiety and trait-anxiety were entered simultaneously as the independent variables. The average study times correlated -0.08 with

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trait-anxiety, -0.16 with state-anxiety and +0.30 with test-anxiety. The analysis revealed a significant regression equation, F(3,32) = 6.09, p < 0.01. Test-anxiety accounted for a significant amount of variance, t=4.08, p<O.OOl, whereas state- and trait-anxiety did not contribute significantly to the equation, t values of -1.58 and -1.91, respectively.'

At the end of each trial, subjects were required to decide whether the digit-string presented matched the one they had been presented with before the trial. An analysis of these accuracy data was performed, with test-anxiety group as a between-subjects factor (high vs. low), memory load (high vs. low), inference type (necessary vs. unnecessary), and match (match vs. mismatch) as within-subject factors. It was found that responses were more accurate for matches than for mismatches (means of 5.09 and 4.61, out of 6, respectively; F(1,34) = 7.17, p < 0.05), and that responses were more accurate following low- memory-load conditions than high-memory-load conditions (means of 5.17 and 4.53, respectively; F(1,34)=29.53, p <0.001). In addition, there was a significant interaction between the match factor and memory load, F(1,34) = 30.09,~ < 0.001. Further analyses showed that there was no difference between matches and mismatches for low memory load (means of 5.04 and 5.16, respectively; FcOmp(l, 34) = 2.09, n.s.), but matches were responded to more accurately than mismatches for high memory load (means of 5.14 and 3.93, respectively; Fmmp(l, 34) = 20.1 1, p < 0.001). Finally, there was an interaction between memory load and inference type, fll, 34) = 6.55, p < 0.05. However, further analyses showed that the difference between necessary and unnecessary inferences was non-significant for both the low-memory-load condition (means of 5.08 and 5.25, respectively; FmP(l, 34) = 1.45, n.s.) and the high-memory-load condition (means of 4.65 and 4.42, respectively; Fcomp(l, 34) = 2.32, n.s.). This interaction is therefore explained by the difference between the two. Of importance here is the non- significant difference between the two groups in their performance accuracy.

' The same pattern of effects was obtained when the multiple regression analyses were performed on the full data set (ftfty-four subjects). In each case, test-anxiety accounted for a signifcant amount of variance, whereas neither trait-anxiety nor composite state- anxiety significantly contributed to the equation.

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Sentence Verification

Reaction The Analyses

An ANOVA was performed on the reaction time (RT) data of the sentence comprehension task (see Table I1 for means and standard deviations). Trials on which subjects failed to correctly recognise the memory items were excluded from this analysis. In addition, only true responses were analysed. This analysis had one between-subjects fao tor of test-anxiety group (high vs. low), and two within-subjects factors of memory load (high vs. low) and inference type (necessary vs. unnecessary).

There was a main effect of group, F(1,34) = 6.84, p < 0.05, showing that the low-test-anxiety group had faster responses than the high group (means of 1355 and 1791 ms, respectively). There was a main effect of inference type, with necessary inferences being responded to faster than unnecessary ones (means of 1495 and 1627 ms, respectively; F(1,34)=11.27, p<O.Ol). There was also an interaction between memory load and inference type F(1 , 34) = 7.54, p < 0.01, with further

.analyses revealing a significant difference between necessary and unnecessary inferences for high memory load (means of 1413 and 1661 ms, respectively; Fcomp( 1,34) = 16.84, p < 0.001), but not for low memory load (means of 1577 and 1594 ms, respectively; FcomP(l, 34) = 0.16, n.s.).

There was an interaction between group membership and inference type, F(1,34)=4.55, ~ ~ 0 . 0 5 . To examine the prediction that the

TABLE I1 Mean reaction time (RT) and accuracy data (standard deviations in parentheses) for sentence-verification task for high- and low-test-anxiety subjects ~ ~

Memory load Inference ~ype

Necesmy Unnecessary

L O W High L O W High ~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~

Low-test-anxiety group

High-test-anxiety group

RT 1370 (387) 1291 (302) 1301 (387) 1460 (312) ACCWaCy 5.32 (0.75) 4.47 (1.21) 5.37 (1.01) 4.26 (1.37)

RT 1807 (670) 1550 (575) 1920 (774) 1886 (841) Accuracy 4.47 (1.07) 4.35 (1.32) 4.82 (1.01) 3.36 (1.23)

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high- and low-test-anxious groups should not differ on necessary inference trials, but that the high-test-anxious group should be slower than the low-test-anxious group, two planned comparisons were performed. The first comparison showed that, contrary to predictions, the high-test-anxious group took significantly longer to respond to necessary inferences than the low-test-anxious group (means of 1679 and 1331 ms, respectively; F,,,(l, 53) =9.51, p cO.001). As predicted, the high-test-anxious group took longer to process the unnecessary inferences than the low-test-anxious group (means of 1903 and 1381 ms, respectively; FcomP(l,46)= 12.71, p <0.001). To locate the significant effects in this interaction, further analyses showed that there was no difference in the time taken to process necessary and unnecessary inferences for the low-test-anxiety subjects, FmmP(1, 34) = 0.79, as . , but unnecessary inferences took longer to respond to than necessary inferences for the high-test-anxiety group, Fwmp(l, 34) = 14.28, p<O.ool.

A performance indicator representing the difference in RT to necessary and unnecessary inferences was calculated. A simultaneous entry multiple regression analysis was performed to establish the relative contributions of test-anxiety, state-anxiety and trait-anxiety on the performance indicator. The performance indicator correlated -0.0 1 with composite state-anxiety, -0.06 with trait-anxiety and +0.30 with test- anxiety. The analysis revealed a non-significant regression equation, F(3,32) = 2.21, n.s. Test-anxiety accounted for a significant amount of variance, t = 2.51, p < 0.05, whereas state- and trait-anxiety did not contribute significantly to the equation (t’s of -0.74 and -0.97, respectively) (cf. Footnote 1).

Accuracy Data Analyses

An ANOVA was performed on the accuracy data, which used the same factors as outlined above. This revealed that the low-test-anxiety group produced more accurate performance than the high group (means of 4.86 and 4.31 out of 6, respectively; F(1,34)=4.83, p<O.O5). When the memory load was high, performance was impaired in comparison with when the memory load was low (means of 4.18 and 5.01, respectively; f l l , 34) = 20.41,~ < 0.001). However, this main effect was modi- fied by an interaction with inference type, f l l , 34) = 7.32, p < 0.05.

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Further analyses showed that there was no difference between necessary and unnecessary inferences for low memory load (means for necessary and unnecessary inferences were 4.92 and 5.1 1, respectively; Fcomp(l, 34) = 1.36, p > 0.05). The effect was only marginally significant for the high memory load (means of 4.12 and 3.94 for necessary and unnecessary inferences, respectively; Famp(l, 34) = 3.53, p = 0.069). The interaction is thus explained by the difference between the two.

It appears from the above analysis that the high-test-anxious group was less accurate in their performance than the low-test-anxious group. To test whether this effect is due to test-anxietyper se, or to state or trait anxiety, a simultaneous entry multiple regression was performed in which overall accuracy was entered as the dependent variable and composite state-anxiety, trait-anxiety and test-anxiety were entered as independent variables. Overall accuracy correlated -0.08 with state-anxiety, -0.18 with trait-anxiety and -0.40 with test- anxiety. The regression analysis revealed a signifcant regression equation, F(3,32) = 2.94, p < 0.05. Only test-anxiety accounted for a significant amount of the variance, t = -2.70, p < 0.05, indicating that as test-anxiety scores increased accuracy decreased, Neither state-anxiety (t = 0.79) nor trait-anxiety (t = 0.64) contributed significantly to the equation (cf. Footnote 1).

DISCUSSION

The results from this experiment offer support for Eysenck and Calvo’s (1992) proposal that anxiety reduces the effective capacity of working memory and also for the idea that anxious subjects can sometimes compensate for reduced efficiency by increased effort. However, it appears from our results that such effects are specific to test-anxiety and not related to general state and trait measures. The results suggest that performance impairments related to differences in test-anxiety are not mediated by state-anxiety, but may be directly related to other aspects of test-anxiety, such as worry and task irrelevant thoughts. The findings from this methodologically improved study are also largely consistent with Darke’s (1988) findings,

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although there are important differences that will be discussed below.

The high-test-anxious subjects spent longer studying the digit- string memory items presented at the beginning of each trial, and the multiple regression analysis confirmed that test-anxiety rather than state- or trait-anxiety accounted for this. However, the groups did not differ in their accuracy on the memory task. This is an interesting finding because it offers support for Eysenck and Calvo (1992) in that it appears that the high-test-anxious subjects invested more resources in studying the memory items at the beginning of each trial. This added effort, which may be interpreted as r e d u d efficiency, appears to have resulted in performance effectiveness being maintained for this task.

The high-test-anxious subjects were slower and less accurate in their verification of the sentences, and their performance was affected by the nature of the inference task. The high-test-anxious subjects took significantly longer to verify unnecessary inferences than necessary ones, whereas the low-test-anxious subjects’ performance was un- affected by the nature of the inferences. Again, the multiple regression analysis confirmed that test-anxiety accounted for a significant amount of the variance, whereas state-anxiety and trait-anxiety did not significantly contribute to the equation. However, although this finding is consistent with Eysenck and Calvo’s predictions, we did not find support for Darke’s (1988) specific prediction that there should be no difference between the high- and low-test-anxious groups for the necessary inference condition, but impaired performance by the high group relative to the low group for the unnecessary inference condition. Darke argued that because necessary inferences are processed automatically and do not require resources of working memory, then there should be no difference in performance between high- and low-test-anxious individuals. However, although processing necessary inferences may not require processing resources, it is clear that the task as a whole (i.e., reading three sentences, etc) does require processing resources. Therefore, our finding that the high-test-anxious group were impaired when processing both necessary and unnecessary inferences, but with particular impairment for unnecessary inferences, supports the idea that both tasks involve working memory resources,

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but. that there are additional resources required for processing the unnecessary inferences.

There was no interaction between group and memory load. The high-test-anxiety group had poorer performance than the low group overall, and again, the multiple regression analysis confirmed that test-anxiety rather than state or trait-anxiety was important here. Also, memory load impaired performance for both groups. However, the increase in memory load did not impair the performance of the high-test-anxiety subjects to a greater degree than it did for the low- test-anxiety subjects. It is suggested that the high-test-anxious subjects invested more effort initially to compensate for the extra resources required to hold the six items in memory, and therefore there was no greater impairment in response latency performance on the verification task when they were holding a high load in memory relative to the low-test-anxious group.

In addition to this, we obtained a significant interaction between type of inference and memory load, showing that there was no difference in performance for the group as a whole for the low-memory- load condition, but significantly longer response times for unnecessary inferences compared with necessary inferences for the high memory load. This indicates that processing unnecessary inferences whilst holding six digits in memory is very demanding. Given this, it is per- haps surprising that there was no two-way interaction between memory load and group, and no three-way interaction involving memory load, inference type, and group. However, the failure to find these interactions might simply reflect performance floor effects. For example, an examination of the accuracy data reveals that the high-test- anxious group’s performance on unnecessary inference t r ia ls when holding six digits in memory is very near to chance, with t h i s group obtaining an average of 3.36 trials correct out of a maximum of 6. Given that chance performance here is 3, a score of 3.36 is only just above chance. It therefore appears to be the case that if the high-test- anxious group were able to compensate for the demands made by a task, as in the case of the memory task, they would do this by investing more effort. However, when the task demands prevent this as in the sentence verification task, performance is impaired and floor effects may arise.

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It is clear from the data that the high-test-anxious subjects performed less effectively than the low-test-anxious subjects overall on the sentence verification task, and were particularly impaired on the more capacity-demanding unnecessary inferential task. However, within the same experiment, we have demonstrated that performance on a secondary memory task was unimpaired in the high-test- anxiety group as a consequence of increased effort. These findings are consistent with Eysenck and Calvo’s (1992) processing efficiency theory.

Refmences

Baddeley, A.D. and Hitch, G. (1974). Working memory. Oxford Oxford University Press.

Benson, J. and Bandalos, D.L. (1992). Second-order confirmatory factor analysis of the reactions to tests scale with cross-validation. Multivariate Behavwural Research, 27, 459-487.

Darke, S. (1988). Effects of anxiety on inferential reasoning task performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55,499-505.

Eysenck, M.W. (1979). Anxiety, learning and memory: A reconceptualisation. Journal of Research in Personality, 13,363-385.

Eysenck, M.W. (1992). Anxiety: The cognitive perspective. Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Eysenck, M.W. and Calvo, M.G. (1992). Anxiety and performance: The processing efficiency theory. Cognition and Emotion, 6,409434.

Garnham, A. and Oakhill, J. (1985). On-line resolution of anaphoric pronouns: Effects of inference making and verb semantics. British Journal of Psychology, 76, 385-393.

Hodapp, V. and Benson, J. (1997). The multidimensionality of test anxiety: A test of different models. Anxiety, Stress and Coping, 10.219-244.

Humphrey, M.S. and Revelle, W. (1984). Personality, motivation, and performan=: A theory of the relationship between individual dSerences and information processing. Psychological Review, 91,153184.

Liebert, R. and Moms, L. (1967). Cognitive and emotional components of test anxiety: A distinction and some initial data. Psychological Reports, 20, 975- 978.

Sarason, LG. (1972). Experimental approaches to test anxiety: Attention and the uses of information. In C.D. Spielberger (Ed.), Anxiety: Current Trends in Theory and Research. pol . 2, pp. 193-216). New York Academic Press.

Sarason, I.G. (1984). Stress, anxiety, and cognitive interference: Reactions to tests. Jour- nal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46,929-938.

Shiffrin, R.M. and Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory. Psychological Review, 84,127-190.

Singer, M. (1980). The role of case-filling inferences in the coherence of brief passages. Discourse Processes, 3,185-201.

Spielberger, C.D., Gorsuch, R.L., Lushene, R., Vagg, P.R. and Jacobs, G.A. (1983). Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Form Y ) . Palo Alto, C A Consulting Psychologists Press.

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APPENDIX

Necessary Inferences

1. A dog stood at the door. The animal was frightened by thunder. T The dog was scared by thunder. F The dog was angered by thunder.

T The drum was intact. F: The drum was clean.

T: The robin was hungry. F: The robin was singing.

grocer. T: The plum was inspected by the grocer. F: The plum was eaten by the grocer.

T: The rose had a pleasant scent. F: The rose had an unusual scent.

drab. T: The desk was very plain. F: The desk was very heavy.

cheerful. T: The daffodil made Lucy feel happy. F: The daffodil made Lucy feel strange.

broad. T: The piano was wide. F: The piano was polished.

T: The pear was juicy. F: The pear was green.

T: The chicken was fat. F The chicken was broody.

2. A drum fell down the stairs. The instrument was undamaged.

3. A robin hopped towards the bread crumbs. The bird was starving.

4. A plum was taken from the bowl. The fruit was examined by the

5. A rose was gently plucked. The flower had a sweet scent.

6. A desk was placed in the comer. The item of furniture was very

7. A daffodil grew in the window box. The flower made Lucy feel

8. A piano was carried up the path. The instrument was very

9. A pear was chosen by Katherine. The fruit was very succulent.

10. A chicken stood in the comer. The bird was very plump.

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106 A. RICHARDS el a[.

11. A horse stood in the field. The animal was feeding near the gate. T: The horse was eating near the gate. F The horse was drinking near the gate.

antique. T The table was very old. F: The table was very elegant.

T: The apple was bruised. F: The apple was ripe.

T: The carnation was very pretty. F: The carnation was very wet.

ingenious design. T: The cabinet was of a clever design. F: The cabinet was of a French design.

T: The kitten was really small. F: The kitten was really playful.

T The violin was very expensive. F: The violin was very delicate.

T: The eagle looked at its young. F: The eagle screeched at its young.

T The pig was dirty. F: The pig was careless.

T: The fruit was selected by James. F: The orange was squashed by James.

T: The wardrobe was huge. F: The wardrobe was mahogany.

T: The trumpet was noisy. F: The trumpet was shiny.

12. A table was found in the basement. The item of furniture was an

13. An apple fell on to the hard floor. The fruit was bruised.

14. A carnation grew in the garden. The flower was very attractive.

15. A cabinet had been constructed. The item of furniture was of an

16. A kitten peeped around the chair. The animal was tiny.

17. A violin was on display. The instrument was costly.

18. An eagle landed in its nest. The bird gazed at its young.

19. A pig rolled happily in the mud. The animal was filthy.

20. An orange was on the tray. The fruit was chosen by James.

21. A wardrobe was inspected. The item of furniture was enormous.

22. A trumpet was being played. The instrument was very loud.

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23. A lily was found near the pond. The flower was very rare. T: The lily was very uncommon. F: The lily was very poisonous.

wards. T: The hawk flew quickly downwards. F The hawk flew spiralling downwards.

24. A hawk appeared over the trees. The bird flew rapidly down-

Unnecessary Inferences

1. Max hit the nail. He was very tired. T Max had a hammer. F: Max had a screwdriver.

T Jean was using a paint brush. F Jean was using a slide-rule.

T Pam had a racket. F: Pam had a handbag.

T: Freda had a camera. F: Freda had a video.

T Ted was in a boat. F Ted was in a daze.

T. Chris was using shampoo. F: Chris was using lipstick.

T: Barbara was holding a brush. F: Barbara was holding a pitchfork.

T. Elsa was using a needle. F: Elsa was using a nail.

T: Andy was holding a syringe. F: Andy was holding a scalpel.

2. Jean was painting some flowers. She was pleased with the picture.

3. Pam was ready to play tennis. She was feeling full of energy.

4. Freda took a photograph. She liked the view.

5. Ted gently rowed down the river. He was enjoying his outing.

6. Chris was washing his daughter’s hair. He was being very gentle.

7. Barbara swept the floor. She hated doing housework.

8. Elsa was sewing her dress. She concentrated on her work.

9. Andy injected the drug into himself. He immediately felt dizzy.

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10. Bob shot his arrow at the target. He felt quite relaxed. T Bob was holding a bow. F: Bob was holding a gun.

T: Alan was holding a key. F Alan was holding a spoon.

her children. T: Ruth was using dice. F: Ruth was using paper.

T Tony used the telephone. F: Tony used the lamp.

T: Ed was holding a pair of scissors. F: Ed was holding a pair of trousers.

T: John was holding shears. F: John was holding pliers.

T: Jill was using a cue. F: Jill was using a fork.

T Maisie was holding a knife. F: Maisie was holding a whisk.

T: Julie had some wool. F: Julie had some string.

T: Brian was using a toothbrush. F: Brian was using a trowel.

money. T: Fred was using a pack of cards. F: Fred was using a pack of tissues.

spotless. T Valerie was using a duster. F: Valerie was using a blanket.

11. Alan unlocked the heavy door. He wondered what lay beyond.

12. Ruth was playing snakes and ladders. She enjoyed playing with

13. Tony rang his girlfriend. He was missing her.

14. Ed cut the wrapping paper. He was wrapping his girlfriend's gift.

15. John was trimming the hedge. He was very proud of his garden.

16. Jill was playing snooker. She really wanted to win.

17. Maisie carved the roast beef. She loved entertaining friends.

18. Julie was knitting herself a scarf. She hated being cold.

19. Brian was cleaning his teeth. He wanted to look his best.

20. Fred was playing poker with his friends. He hoped to win some

21. Valerie was polishing the best china. She wanted her house to look

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22. Polly was writing on the blackboard. She was enjoying the lesson. T Polly was holding some chalk. F: Polly was holding a pencil.

T Tim was watching the television. F: Tim was watching the clock.

T Robert used a club. F: Robert used a cane.

23. Tim was watching his favourite programme. He never missed it.

24. Robert spent the day playing golf. He really enjoyed the game.

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test-anxiety, inferential reasoning and working memory load

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