Perceptual recognition as a function of anxiety, motivation, and the testing situation.

The hypothesis was made that degree of anxiety and motivation would influence S's performance on tasks measuring skill in discovering objects embedded in a stimulus field, particularly as the situation was structured to be stressful or not. Ss low in anxiety and high in motivation performed significantly better than Ss high in anxiety but with low motivation. In the nonstressful situation, Ss low in anxiety and motivation performed significantly poorer than their counterparts. It is recommended, therefore, that situational task variables be considered as crucial factors in analysing behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)