Abstract
Drive Theory posits that conditioned anxiety experienced by learners is sufficient to cause them to "block" or to "choke up" when confronted with complex learning tasks. Moreover, if anxiety is elicited during instructional episodes, it may become a conditioned response, undermining efforts to develop positive affect toward specific subject matter or to the mode of presentation. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine whether instruction via compressed speech produces anxiety in listeners. Results indicate that anxiety increases as presentation rate increases.