“…Speakers exhibit more cognitive, physiological, and behavioral anxiety when exposed to audiences of greater size and expertise (Bode & Brutten, 1963;Hillmert, Christenfeld, & Kulik, 2002;Long, Lynch, Machiran, Thomas, Public Speaking Anxiety 81 & Malinow, 1982;McKinney et al, 1983;Seta, Crisson, Seta, & Wang, 1989, Experiment 1;Shearn, Bergman, Hill, Abel, & Hinds, 1992) as well as when audiences responded negatively (Bassett, Behnke, Carlile, & Rogers, 1973;Hillmert et al, 2002;Pertaub, Slater, & Barker, 2002) or in a neutral manner (Lepore, 1995;Lepore, Allen, & Evans, 1993;MacIntyre, Thivierge, & MacDonald, 1997) during the speech, compared to audiences who responded in a positive manner (for an early review see Gardiner, 1971). In a more comprehensive study, Ayres (1990) The AIM is a 40-item scale measuring the ''general level of reactivity to emotional experiences'' (Clay et al, 2005, p. 99).…”