title: Frontal theta activity during working memory in test anxiety.
abstract: Previous studies have shown that working memory (WM) processes are related to frontal-midline theta (FM-theta) activity (4-8 Hz) and test anxiety impairs WM performance. However, the effect of test anxiety on FM-theta activity during WM has not been investigated as yet. To examine this question, 37 undergraduates were asked to complete a modified reading span task involving neutral working memory capacity (WMC) and emotional WMC while their electroencephalography was measured. The results showed that relative to neutral WMC performance (the ability to remember the letter lists in the context of valence-neutral sentences), emotional WMC performance (the ability to remember the letter lists in the context of test-related sentences) was poorer for highly test anxious participants compared with lowly test anxious participants. Relative to FM-theta activity during remembering the letter lists in the valence-neutral context, FM-theta activity was weaker during remembering the letter lists in the test-related context for highly test anxious participants compared with lowly test anxious participants. These findings indicate that FM-theta is an index not only for successful WM manipulation but also for efficient prefrontal cortex functioning during WM.
authors: aKey Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science, Research Center for Learning Science, Ministry of Education, Southeast University bDepartment of Psychology, School of Social and Behavior Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing cFaculty of Modern Educational Technology, Northwest University for Nationalities, Lanzhou dState Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning eResearch Center of Emotion Regulation, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
authors: Zhan
authors: Z
authors: Shi
authors: Xin
authors: X
authors: Gao
authors: Renlai
authors: R
authors: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D060805:Performance Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013732:Test Anxiety Scale; D013826:Theta Rhythm; D055815:Young Adult