The Value Expectation Bias in Test Anxiety Individuals: Test Specificity
or Threat Generality?
Abstract
The value expectation (reward or punishment) of outcomes based on
experience and current information decides whether to do and how much
effort to put into executing the current task. Individuals with test
anxiety have difficulty inhibiting test-related and test-unrelated
threat stimuli. We suggested that the excessive negative value
expectation for threat stimuli played an important role. Thus, the
current study investigated the value expectation towards test-related
and test-unrelated threat stimuli in test anxiety individuals. The ERP
results showed that, in the high test anxiety (HTA) group, compared to
neutral stimuli, test-related and unrelated threat stimuli induced more
negative FRN amplitudes following negative feedback and more positive
FRN amplitudes following positive feedback. Moreover, the FRN amplitudes
induced by negative feedback following test-related and test-unrelated
threat stimuli were significantly more negative in the HTA group than in
the LTA group. In the FRN difference wave (d-FRN) results, test-related
and unrelated threat stimuli induced more negative d-FRN than neutral
stimuli. Additionally, the HTA group showed a more negative d-FRN than
the LTA group under the test-related threat condition. No differences
were found in the LTA group. In the ERD results of the beta band, the
ERD power induced by negative feedback following test-related threat
stimuli was significantly stronger than those following test-unrelated
threat stimuli in the HTA group. However, no significant differences
were found in the average P3 amplitude and ERS results in the theta
band. These findings suggested that individuals with HTA had a negative
value expectation for threat stimuli.