The assessment ofinformation processingspeed with regard tostate trait anxiety

Authors
Jafar Hasani
Hasan Rezaee
Abstract
Emotionand cognitionconstructs constitute twobasic dimensions ofhuman psychologicalstructureandtheexplanation of performanceis onlypossibledue to theinteractionof thesetwo dimensions.The aimofthis study wasto investigate student’s information processingspeed based ontrait/stateanxiety.From large population ofNajaf Abadcityhighschoolstudentsaccording to inclusion criteria and extreme scores of distribution of Spielberger Trait and State AnxietyScale (EPQ-R)fourgroups(highstatanxiety, lowstatanxiety, hightraitanxiety&lowtraitanxiety N=15) wereselected and assessed by Speed-of-processing tests (Zahlen-Verbindungs-TestOswald & Roth, 1978) and Sitzwohl’s Coding Test (KDT)(1995). Theresultsofmultivariate analysis of varianceand Bonferenipost hoctestsshowed thatthere aresignificant differences between fourgroups in speed-of-processing andcoding .Theresults alsoshowed thatspeed-of-processinginstudents with low trait and low state anxietyis faster thanstudentswithhightrait and high stateanxiety. Based on the findingsof this studycan be said thatanxiety plays an important role incognitive functionsandinformationprocessing speedofandhigh anxiety(trait /state) causes interferenceininformation processingspeed, and ultimately cognitive functions.
Keywords
InformationProcessing Speed
TraitAnxiety
Stat Anxiety
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