Student Name
Fall 2011
PSYC 2301.S22
Psychology in the News: Report 2
Experiments using an increasingly high-pressured math quiz suggest that testing anxiety reduces the ability of very smart people to tap into their working memory capacity. The study which was published in Psychological Scienceused 93 undergraduates who were divided into a low working memory group and a high working memory group based on results from a baseline math assessment test. People who have more working memory can hold and manipulate more information than someone who has less. Typically researchers associate intelligence with working memory but this study tests whether this advantage holds true when stress enters into the picture. In one experiment, the students were simply told to work through the math problems at their own pace. In subsequent experiments, the investigators ratcheted up anxiety levels via time constraints and other manipulations, such as telling the students they were now part of a team or were being videotaped for review by experts later on. The high working memory group tended to ‘crumble’ under those pressures and their test scores went down. The stress may be using up the capacity that would normally be used for memory needed to achieve outstanding high performance. On the other hand, test scores for students with relatively low levels of working memory remained more or less the same, regardless of the pressures put on them. It is suggested that the low level working memory group uses different problem solving strategies without relying too much on short term memory, therefore the stress would not impair their average performance.
In another part of the experiment, the “brainy types” regained their advantage after rehearsing the test beforehand in an equally pressured environment. This allowed prior knowledge and experience to guide them rather than their attentional control. The researchers feel that there are implications for the interpretation of tests such as the SAT and state that we should not confuse intelligence with test performance.
There are at least three major psychology related topics that are addressed in this research report. They include 1) Intelligence 2) Memory, and 3) Stress. According to the Myers 8e Psychology textbook, intelligence is “the mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations”. Memoryis the persistence of learning over time and short term memory is memory that is activated to hold a few items briefly until it is stored or forgotten. The research report defined working memory as short term memory that is used to hold information about what we are doing in an immediate and active form. Stress is the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events that we appraise as challenging. Stress was the pressure that interfered with the working memory of the high performing students.
Many test-prep courses rely on simulation and practice to help students achieve on the SAT and other exams. This study would support the importance of these types of services for students. I know that practice is important for me to achieve high results in many of the things I do. In addition to testing; playing music, playing sports, giving presentations, all required practice to gain experience and confidence that helps to eliminate interfering stressors. I do question whether tests truly measure what they hope to measure since it appears that many factors such as lack of experience or stress can interfere with valid results.
Mundell, E. (2005, March 9). Test Pressure Toughest on Smartest – Anxiety can cause brainy types to lose their edge, study shows. Retrieved March 25, 2005, from Health Day News
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