A person's cognitive processes can be influenced by their mood state and
emotions. This can have implications for an individual's performance in
a number of situations such as in the workplace, sporting arena and
educational settings. People who experience high levels of anxiety have
a tendency to engage in worry, or interfering thoughts, that can impact
on working memory functioning. Because working memory plays an important
role in attentional processes particularly during the initial stages of
task learning, this book investigates the association between anxiety
and cognitive skill acquisition and transfer. The association between
state and trait anxiety, the intrusiveness of off task thoughts and
working memory capacity are explored in the context of skill acquisition
and transfer models.