Interpretation Bias in Test Anxiety: The Time Course of Predictive Inferences

Abstract

The time course of the bias in predictive inferencing as a function of anxiety was examined. Ambiguous sentences (concerned with ego-threat, physicalthreat, or nonthreat events) were presented, followed by disambiguating sentences in which a target word either confirmed or disconfirmed the consequences implied by the ambiguous context. High- and low-anxiety subjects read the sentences at their own pace with the moving-window procedure. Effects on word reading times at different points were measured. Priming effects occurred for high-anxiety subjects when reading disambiguating ego-threat-related sentences: There was greater relative facilitation for confirming than for disconfirming ego-threat versions in high-anxiety subjects, compared with physical-threat and nonthreat versions, and with low-anxiety subjects. Because these effects were not observed in the target word itself but in the post-target region and the last word of the disambiguating sentence, we concluded that the bias towards ego-threat predictive inferences does not occur during the initial processing of the ambiguous information, but rather, is a post-lexical delayed phenomenon. The mechanisms of such bias are discussed in relation to current models of inferences in reading.