Abstract:

Presents findings of an empirical study on incidental learning in which 48 subjects were presented with adjectives with different emotional content and then asked to judge whether the adjectives described their feelings and thoughts during exam situations. Subsequently the adjectives were to be reproduced. At the end of the experiment, the test anxiety inventory (TAI) by Hodapp, Laux and Spielberger was administered to measure worry and emotionality. The results of analysis of covariance show that persons with high scores on worry or emotionality judge negatively toned adjectives as more descriptive of themselves than persons low on worry or emotionality. High-worry subjects recall more adjectives and make more reproduction errors (intrusions) than persons with low-worry scores. These findings are discussed in the context of a semantic interpretation of test anxiety.