Effects of anxiety on inferential reasoning task performance

Three experiments were conducted in which high anxiety and low anxiety subjects were required to construct inferences. In Experiment 1 there was no anxiety-related performance deficit when inferring a necessary anaphoric relation, a process argued to be automatic. Experiments 2 and 3 involved the verification of unnecessary inferences, a process argued to involve the utilization of the working memory system. In both Experiments 2 and 3 there was an anxiety-related performance deficit. The results are consistent with a working memory-oriented account of anxiety-related performance effects, as deficits were restricted to capacity-demanding tasks.