Attentional Disengage from Test-Related Pictures in Test-Anxious Students: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Abstract

AbstractThe present study aims to investigate neural correlations on attentional disengagement in test-anxious students. Event-related potentials were recorded from 28 undergraduates, grouped according to their scores in Sarason test scale (TAS). All students performed a same central cue task. Results of response times (RTs) show slowing effect of test-related stimuli appeared on high test-anxious students only. ERPs results show the targets following test-related cues captured more attentional processing in the early period and attentional resource allocation (enhanced N100 and P300 amplitude) both in high and low test-anxious students. These findings indicate the behavioral performance is consistent with cognitive processing in high test-anxious students only. This means the test-related cue captured more attentional resource of high test-anxious students, and bring them difficulty in shifting attention from target following test-related cue. For the low test-anxious students, however, there is no slowing effect on test-related trials.Keywordstest-anxietyundergraduatesattentional disengagementERPs