E-ISSN : 2733-4538
The present study was designed to test the relation of speech anxiety and self-focused attention. In preliminary study, subjects were 57 undergraduate students. Among them 32 subjects were high speech-anxious individuals and 25 subjects were low speech-anxious individuals. The results were as follows. High speech-anxious group was higher than low speech-anxious group in self-report anxiety measures, physiological respons(HR), and overt motor behavior during public speaking performance. Also high anxious speakers pay attention to their self-focused contents. These results indicated that high anxious speakers were more self-focused during their public speaking performance than low anxious speakers, which leading to less effective public speaking performance. The study was them designed to test the effects of HR biofeedback on speech anxiety and self-focused attention. The high speech-anxious individuals were assigned randomly to the HR biofeedback training group and the waiting-list control group. There were 15 subjects in each group. The results were as follows. The HR biofeedback training group was significantly reduced in the their anxiety levels(self-report anxiety measures, HR, and overt motor behavior) and self-focused attention. Finally, implications, restrictions and suggestions of the present study were discussed.