Pressure and choking
A recent study detailed this week in Psychological Science, suggests that people with a good memory are also more likely to break under pressure. The study took 93 undergrads from Michigan State and devided them into two groups, a high working-memory group (HWM) and a low working memory group (LWM). When they all took a 24 problem math test in a low-pressure environment, the HWM did much better. When they cranked up the pressure by telling the groups that their performance will be evaluated by math professors, the score of HWM dropped to that of the LWM group. This is just one more study to challange the accuracy of high-pressure tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and MCAT in predicting who will succeed in acacdemics.
Choking Under Pressure, Sian L. Beilok (Miami U) and Thomas H Carr (Michigan State).