The Interrelationships Between Anxiety, Motor Performance and Electromyography

Much confusion in the research on anxiety and motor behavior is due to the failure to distinguish between anxiety as a transitory state and as a relatively stable state. In addition, researchers have been focusing on the end result of a motor act (performance) instead of investigating the quality of movement (patterns of energy organization) that make up the motor act. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was administered in this study to distinguish A-State and A-Trait subjects, while electromyography was used to investigate qualitative differences in motor behavior. High-anxious subjects performed significantly poorer than low-anxious subjects, and they used more energy over a longer period of time before, during, and after the performance than low-anxious subjects. The results were discussed in terms of efficiency of neuromuscular energy expenditure.