Feedback and Anxiety in Verbal Discrimination Learning

Abstract

120 volunteers learned a 12-pair list of 4-letter words of low frequency. The independent variable was feedback (positive only, negative only, or positive and negative), and trait anxiety (high or low) and sex (male or female) were used as subject-variables. For errors per trial, the interaction of feedback, anxiety, and trials was significant. Individuals low in anxiety performed poorly when exposed to negative feedback while feedback contingencies were not related to performance differences for the highly anxious individuals. The results are discussed in terms of task-related state anxiety.