Relationship between digit span and anxiety

The hypothesis was tested that WAIS Digit Span (DS) performance is disrupted by anxiety. 110 college students, who had been tested on Taylor's MA scale and Sarason's Test Anxiety Questionnaire, were tested under an anxiety-inducing or rapport-establishing (control) procedure. After testing on DS, experimental Ss were asked if the instruction variable had disturbed them. With respect to DS: (a) no-significant differences were found between experimental and control groups, but within the experimental group, those who were disturbed were inferior on DS to control Ss ( p < .05); (b) performance of the control Ss, but not of the experimental Ss, was found to be significantly related to TAQ ( r = -.23, p < .05) and MA scale ( r = .26, p < .05).