Math Anxiety and Working Memory Updating: Difficulties in Retrieving Numerical Information From Working Memory

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...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Pelegrina, Santiago, Justicia-Galiano, M. José, Martín-Puga, M. Eva, Linares, Rocío
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Recursos:Universidad de Jaén
Repositorio:RUJA. Repositorio Institucional de la Producción Científica de la Universidad de Jaén
OAI Identifier:oai:ruja.ujaen.es:10953/1488
Acesso em linha:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00669
https://hdl.handle.net/10953/1488
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:math anxiety
working memory updating
workingmemory
memory retrieval
anxiety
updating components
Descrição
Resumo: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.