Abstract
Subjects of high or low test anxiety learned a free recall list composed of either concrete or abstract nouns, under instructions to think of images, phrases, or with no special strategy. Anxiety had no significant effect on total recall or subjective organization. High-anxiety subjects seemed to utilize a strategy of recall from short-term memory, though they had smaller digit spans than low-anxiety subjects. There was also a tendency for high-anxiety subjects under certain mnemonic instructions to give greater output priority to previously unrecalled items than did low-anxiety subjects.
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Mueller, J.H., Overcast, T.D. Free recall as a function of test anxiety, concreteness, and instructions. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 8, 194–196 (1976). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335123
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335123