Have you ever wondered why the "hold my beer" people never seem to choke under pressure? Thanks to SCIENCE, now we know why.
Previous research has shown that the higher one's working memory capacity, the more likely his/her performance is to be negatively impacted by performance pressure. In the current research we examined potential explanations for this finding by assessing the relation between pressure-induced performance deficits (i.e. “choking under pressure”) in math-based problem solving and individual differences in both working memory (as assessed via complex span tasks) and attentional control (as assessed via two measures from an Eriksen Flanker task).
