Math anxiety (MA)-working memory (WM) relationships have typically been examined in the context of arithmetic problem solving, and little research has examined the relationship in other math domains (e.g., algebra). Moreover, researchers have tended to examine MA/worry separate from math problem solving activities and have used general WM tasks rather than domain-relevant WM measures. Furthermo...

Opioid neurotransmission modulates pain and negative affect during psychological stress. To determine whether these effects differ between men and women, the opioid receptor antagonist naltrexone or placebo was administered double-blind to 21 men and 22 women before they completed 30 min of difficult mental arithmetic. To heighten negative affect, participants received seven moderately noxious ...

Mindfulness enhances emotion regulation and cognitive performance. A mindful approach may be especially beneficial in high-stakes academic testing environments, in which anxious thoughts disrupt cognitive control. The current studies examined whether mindfulness improves the emotional response to anxiety-producing testing situations, freeing working memory resources, and improving performance. ...

Mathematics anxiety is negatively related to mathematics performance, thereby threatening the professional success. Preoccupation with the emotional content of the stimuli may consume working memory resources, which may be reflected in decreased deactivation of areas associated with the default mode network (DMN) activated during self-referential and emotional processing. The common problem is ...