Response inhibition deficits in math-anxious individuals

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Math anxiety is a prevalent issue affecting academic performance.
• The underlying cognitive mechanisms of math anxiety, particularly response inhibition, require further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if math anxiety is linked to a response inhibition deficit.
• To ascertain if this deficit is specific to numerical tasks or general.

Main Methods:

• Behavioral performance and electroencephalogram (EEG) activity were recorded.
• 28 highly math-anxious (HMA) and 28 low math-anxious (LMA) individuals completed numerical and non-numerical Go/Nogo tasks.
• EEG measures included Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3 amplitudes.

Main Results:

• Both groups showed less accuracy and larger Nogo-N2/Nogo-P3 on Nogo trials across tasks.
• HMA individuals were more error-prone in numerical Nogo trials compared to non-numerical Nogo trials.
• HMA individuals exhibited smaller Nogo-N2 and N2d amplitudes in the numerical task versus the non-numerical task.

Conclusions:

• Highly math-anxious individuals demonstrate a domain-specific response inhibition deficit in numerical tasks.
• This number-specific inhibition impairment may contribute to difficulties in math.
• Low math-anxious individuals did not show task-specific inhibition differences.