Enhanced or impoverished recruitment of top-down attentional control of inhibition in test anxiety

Highlights

• The N2 is used to assess top-down attentional control resource allocation.

• High test anxiety (HTA) was associated with larger incongruent N2 amplitudes.

• HTA was associated with smaller incongruent N2 amplitudes when “overload”.

Abstract

Controversy exists as to whether high test anxiety (HTA) individuals, when completing an inhibition task, increase or decrease top-down attentional control resources to maintain high task performance. In a flanker task experiment, individuals were confronted with a threat or no threat context in combination with a low or a high working memory load. The N2 measured top-down attentional control resource allocation. The results showed that, in comparison to low test anxiety (LTA) individuals, HTA individuals had larger N2 amplitudes in a no threat condition, especially for incongruent trials. Also, in a threat condition when under high working memory load, HTA individuals had smaller incongruent N2 amplitudes. These findings support the conclusion that HTA individuals tend to enhance recruitment of top-down attentional control of inhibition. Additionally, they may also fail to compensate for impaired inhibition as indicated by impoverished top-down attentional control resources when demands on attentional control are high.

Introduction

Past research has demonstrated that test anxiety in individuals increases the risk for the development of anxiety and depression disorders (Leadbeater, Thompson, & Gruppuso, 2012). Studies suggested that 15–22 percent of students exhibit high levels of test anxiety (Putwain & Daly, 2014; Thomas, Cassady, & Finch, 2018). Test anxiety refers to a situation-specific form of anxiety, with anxiety-related cognitive, behavioural, and affective characteristics elicited by test-related stimuli, especially stimuli referring to educational or evaluative settings (Zeidner, 1998). Importantly, test anxiety is known to be associated with impaired performance on academic achievement assessments (Putwain & Symes, 2018; Von der Embse, Jester, Roy, & Post, 2018). Attentional Control Theory (ACT) states that test anxiety impairs inhibition, a key element of the central executive function (Eysenck, Nazanin, Rita, & Calvo, 2007). Meanwhile, a large number of experimental studies have supported this statement (Ansari & Derakshan, 2011; Basten, Stelzel, & Fiebach, 2011; Berggren & Derakshan, 2013a; Derakshan & Eysenck, 2009; Eysenck & Derakshan, 2011; Eysenck, Nazanin et al., 2007; Pacheco-Unguetti, Acosta, Callejas, & Lupiáñez, 2010; Righi, Mecacci, & Viggiano, 2009; Savostyanov et al., 2009; Van den Bussche, Vanmeert, Aben, & Sasanguie, 2020).

However, the present literature is divided as it is unclear as to whether test anxiety is associated with enhanced or impoverished recruitment of top-down attentional control when completing an inhibition task, shortly referred to as “enhanced recruitment” and “impoverished recruitment”, respectively. The possibility of enhanced or impoverished recruitment define two opposing accounts in the literature, each of which are supported by different theories and evidences (Berggren & Derakshan, 2013a; Bishop, 2009; Eysenck & Derakshan, 2011; Eysenck, Nazanin et al., 2007).

The first account, enhanced recruitment, emerges from both Processing Efficiency Theory (PET) and ACT (Eysenck, 1992; Eysenck, Nazanin et al., 2007). Both PET and ACT propose that, in contrast with low test anxiety (LTA) individuals, high test anxiety (HTA) individuals make a higher effort to maintain high task performance, that is they display increased recruitment of top-down attentional control of inhibition. In other words, in contrast with LTA individuals, HTA individuals need to use more attentional control resources when completing the same experimental task. Numerous relevant behavioural, EEG and fMRI studies attested to the existence of such increase (Basten et al., 2011; Berggren & Derakshan, 2013b; Derakshan, Ansari, Hansard, Shoker, & Eysenck, 2009; Righi et al., 2009; Savostyanov et al., 2009; Sehlmeyer et al., 2010).

The second account gave rise to not just one, but two clearly distinct views, mainly depending on the extent to which high experimental demands on attentional control were also considered. A first view is proposed by Bishop who asserted that anxiety is correlated with an impoverished recruitment of top-down attentional control when performing the inhibition task (Bishop, 2009). Unfortunately, this view is exclusively based on experiments imposing low demands on attentional control. Our study context is fundamentally different in terms of the extent of the demand on attentional control. Indeed, our study context deals with test anxiety as manifested in educational or evaluative settings, which are characterized by high demands on attentional control. In contrast with LTA individuals, HTA individuals tend to be motivated to recruit greater attentional control resources to compensate for impaired efficiency when performing the inhibition task (Eysenck, Nazanin et al., 2007). ACT also proposed the possibility that anxious individuals may fail to compensate for impaired efficiency through enhanced effort and use of attentional control resources when overall task demands are in overload (Eysenck, Nazanin et al., 2007). But so far, no published research clarifies whether HTA individuals would show impoverished recruitment of top-down attentional control of individuals’ inhibition when overall task demands are in overload. Our present study is positioned in close alignment with the second possible view asserting that test anxiety is associated with impoverished recruitment of top-down attentional control of individuals’ inhibition in educational or evaluative settings.

More specifically, in our study, we proposed an integrated account asserting that, in contrast with LTA individuals, HTA individuals can enhance top-down attentional control resources to compensate for impaired inhibition when the available resources for attentional control are not limited. Additionally, when demands on attentional control are high, HTA individuals may also fail to effectively enhance effort and use attentional control resources to compensate for impaired inhibition, a failure that attests to impoverished of top-down attentional control resources of inhibition. As far as we know, to date, no experimental evidence is collected which supports this integrated account. However, our present study does provide a first step in compiling an evidence base for the integrated account.

In order to test the integrated account, we had to design an experiment which induces experimental settings characterized by limited or adequate available attentional control resources for inhibition. Thus, individuals had to perform an arrow flanker task as well as simultaneously complete either a low or high working memory load task in a test-related threat or a no threat condition. First, according to Lavie’s load theory of selective attention (Lavie, Hirst, De Fockert, & Viding, 2004), increased working memory load reduces the available attentional control resources for performing the inhibition task, especially for high anxious individuals (Berggren, Richards, Taylor, & Derakshan, 2013; Qi et al., 2014; Spangler & Friedman, 2017). Second, test anxiety is a situation-specific form of anxiety (Zeidner, 1998). In contrast with LTA individuals, HTA individuals are more likely to allocate attentional control resources to threat-related internal (e.g., worrisome thoughts) or external (e.g., threatening task-irrelevant distractors) stimuli, especially in a test-related threat condition (Dong, De, Yu, & Zhou, 2016; Keogh & French, 2001; Putwain, Langdale, Woods, & Nicholson, 2011). Thus, when switching from a no test-related threat condition to a test-related threat condition, a substantial reduction of the available attentional control resources for HTA individuals is expected to be observed. Using the experimental manipulations introduced above, we were able to successfully induce experimental settings characterized by limited or adequate available attentional control resources for performing the inhibition task.

In addition, the flanker related evoked event-related potential (ERP) component N2 was used to measure top-down attentional control resource allocation. The N2 wave is a fronto-central stimulus-locked component having a latency of between 200 and 400 ms and is continuously monitored during individuals’ conduct of the experimental trials (Folstein & Van Petten, 2008). The N2 amplitude is known to show the following pattern, it is larger in experimental conditions providing incongruent response options than in experimental conditions providing congruent response options (Folstein & Van Petten, 2008). Past studies showed that the N2 is conceived to be due to the nature of conflict monitoring processes and the role of top-down attentional control resource allocation in inhibition, which has been repeatedly used to measure cognitive effort in studies examining worry and anxiety-related emotions and inhibition (Folstein & Van Petten, 2008; Owens, Derakshan, & Richards, 2015; Righi et al., 2009; Sehlmeyer et al., 2010; Tillman & Wiens, 2011).

Above all, the main aim of this study was to test whether test anxiety is associated with enhanced or impoverished recruitment of top-down attentional control of individuals’ inhibition. We hypothesized that HTA individuals are expected to differ from individuals not suffering from test anxiety, in that HTA individuals will recruit greater attentional control resources in order to maintain comparable task performance, at least when the available resources for attentional control are not limited. Thus, more specifically, we expected that HTA individuals would show larger N2 amplitudes than LTA individuals, especially in the following experimental condition: no test-related threat, and incongruent trials, both combined. However, for HTA individuals the resources available for attentional control are limited, especially in a threat condition when under high working memory load. We hypothesized that HTA individuals may also fail to effectively enhance effort and use of attentional control resources to compensate for impaired inhibition, a failure that attests to impoverished of top-down attentional control resources of inhibition. Thus, we also expected that HTA individuals would show smaller N2 amplitudes than LTA individuals, especially in the following experimental condition: test-related threat, high working memory load, and incongruent trials, all combined.