The aim of this research is to explore whether comprehension is impair
ed by test anxiety, whether the anxious person spends compensatory rea
ding time, and which cognitive processes arc affected. High- and low-a
nxiety students read texts word by word with the moving-window techniq
ue under test conditions. Multiple regression analyses on word-reading
times were computed with a number of psycholinguistic variables-assum
ed to map onto specific processes-serving as predictors. Results indic
ated that anxiety did not impair comprehension, but increased word-rea
ding times, which were affected interactively by anxiety and specific
psycholinguistic variables (end of clause, serial position within the
text, narrativity, and summary). These data reveal that anxious reader
s need to employ a greater amount of processing resources than their n
on-anxious counterparts to obtain a similar comprehension level. Furth
ermore, the interactive effects suggest that anxiety is selectively de
trimental to the efficiency of text-level processes, such as those inv
olved in integrating information across sentences. In contrast, anxiet
y docs not impair low-level processes, such as encoding and lexical ac
cess.