Cognitive tasks performance in emotional tension increasing

Relevance. The problem of change in cognitive performance under more complicated activity conditions is of interest to psychologists and scholars in neuro- and informational sciences. Without its solution it’s impossible to model cognitive activity and predict its efficiency in different situations. Tasks that access attention and working memory resources are of particular interest. The level of emotional tension is often considered a factor hampering the task solution. Previously, authors showed that emotional tension leads to change in spatial distribution of attention and in cognitive strategies that provide solutions to more complex tasks.

Objective. To determine how test anxiety influences the mental rotation task performance. 

Methods and sampling. Two groups of subjects were asked to solve the mental rotation task either under emotionally neutral conditions or under the conditions when task performance was significant to the subject. The emotional state of subjects was controlled with questionnaires. In addition, the individual level of stress resistance was measured.

Results. We obtained a linear effect of test-stimulus orientation on reaction time (that was Shepard and Metzler’s discovery). In the situation of emotional tension the average solving time slightly increased and the number of correct answers slightly decreased. Any significant change in task solving strategies was related to the level of stress resistance in subjects.

Conclusion. The cognitive strategies are transformed under impact of emotional tension and whether the subject would choose a constructive strategy or a non-constructive one depends on the subject’s stress resistance. Subjects with lower stress resistance have difficulty distributing cognitive resources, rotating figures in the mental space. 

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