Table_1_Math Anxiety and Working Memory Updating: Difficulties in Retrieving Numerical Information From Working Memory.DOCX

This study aimed to determine whether math anxiety was related to working memory (WM) updating performance and, specifically, to the retrieval and substitution components of updating. A set of WM updating (WMU) tasks that involve different retrieval and substitution requirements were administered to 114 university students. In addition, participants completed a math anxiety assessment on two occasions: 1–2 weeks before and immediately prior to task administration to increase the likelihood of observing the relationship between math anxiety and updating performance. The results showed a relationship between math anxiety scores and updating performance. Math anxious individuals took longer and made more errors, especially on tasks that required retrieving information from WM. These results suggest that math anxious individuals are less efficient when it comes to accessing numerical information in WM. Consequently, they may struggle with math-related tasks that involve retrieving numerical information from WM.

本研究旨在探究数学焦虑是否与工作记忆（WM）更新性能相关，特别是与更新过程中的检索与替代环节相关。研究人员向114名大学生实施了一系列涉及不同检索与替代要求的工作记忆更新（WMU）任务。此外，参与者分别在任务实施前1至2周以及实施前立即完成了数学焦虑评估，以增加观察数学焦虑与更新性能之间关系的机会。研究结果揭示了数学焦虑得分与更新性能之间的相关性。数学焦虑较重者在完成任务时耗时更长，错误率更高，尤其是在需要从工作记忆中检索信息的情况下。这些结果暗示，在访问工作记忆中的数值信息方面，数学焦虑者效率较低，因此在涉及从工作记忆中检索数值信息的数学相关任务中可能面临更多挑战。