Exerting cognitive control under threat: Interactive effects of physical and emotional stress.

Abstract

Individuals with stressful occupations, such as law enforcement and military personnel, are required to operate in high stakes environments that can be simultaneously physically and emotionally demanding. These individuals are tasked with maintaining peak performance under stressful and often unpredictable conditions, exerting high levels of cognitive control to sustain attention and suppress task-irrelevant actions. Previous research has shown that physical and emotional stressors differentially influence such cognitive control processes. For example, physical stress impairs while emotional stress facilitates the ability to inhibit a prepotent response, yet, interactions between the two remain poorly understood. Here we examined whether emotional stress induced by threat of unpredictable electric shock mitigates the effects of physical stress on response inhibition. Participants performed an auditory Go/NoGo task under safe versus threat conditions while cycling at high intensity (84% HR max ) for 50 min. In threat conditions, participants were told they would receive mild electric shocks that were unpredictable and unrelated to task performance. Self-reported anxiety increased under threat versus safe conditions, and perceived exertion increased with exercise duration. As predicted, we observed decrements in response inhibition (increased false alarms) as exertion increased under safe conditions, but improved response inhibition as exertion increased under threat conditions. These findings are consistent with previous work showing that anxiety induced by unpredictable threat promotes adaptive survival mechanisms, such as improved vigilance, threat detection, cautious behavior, and harm avoidance. Here, we suggest that emotional stress induced by unpredictable threat can also mitigate decrements in cognitive performance experienced under physically demanding conditions.

Response inhibition under emotional and physical stress.

“…In contrast to the results of Cantelon et al (2019), who observed effects of physical stress to be restricted to the low emotional stress condition, our results provide no evidence for a canceling-out effect between emotional and physical stress. Similarly, no evidence was observed for the assumption that a combination of high emotional and physical stress would lead to additionally negative effects on task performance (Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2017).…”

“…Perceived intensity was measured using a 10-point scale (1 = none/no distress ; 10 = agonizing/unbearable distress ) during the work-up procedure and throughout the experiment to ensure that participants would not exceed a score of 4 ( uncomfortable ). In line with previous studies (Cantelon et al, 2019; Grillon et al, 2004; Robinson et al, 2013), emotional stress was manipulated on a block-by-block basis during the task, with order randomized within participants and exercise conditions (i.e., light vs. vigorous intensity). Participants were informed about threat versus no-threat by means of a visual indicator on the screen (visible throughout the block).…”

“…Regarding the effect of physical stress, we predicted decreased vigilance (Dietrich & Audiffren, 2011; Tenenbaum, 2001), resulting in impaired Go response time accuracy and longer SSRTs in vigorous compared to light intensity (Wohlwend et al, 2017). Finally, we anticipated an interaction between emotional and physical stress, either as a detrimental additive effect (Nieuwenhuys & Oudejans, 2017) or a canceling-out effect between both stressors (Cantelon et al, 2019; Rejeski, 1985). In case of an additive effect, combined effects physical and emotional stress may result in impaired Go response time accuracy and longer SSRTs compared to single stressor exposure.…”

Is There an Optimal Autonomic State for Enhanced Flow and Executive Task Performance?

“…Other studies have demonstrated that invoking a higher stress response can also increase cognitive performance. In a study on perceived threat of electric shock, subjects with increased anxiety demonstrated faster reaction time in executive tasks under the threat of unpredictable shocks to the hand (Cantelon et al, 2018). In studies on physical exertion in athletes, higher stress responses from exertion were associated with faster reaction times (Luft et al, 2009; Murray and Russoniello, 2012).…”

A Review of Cognitive Changes During Acute Aerobic Exercise

“…Future work should also consider the psychological factors that are at play in realistic exercise scenarios (e.g., anticipatory anxiety before athletic performance, cognitive stress during military operations) that may influence motivation in lab-based research. For example, acute anxiety experienced during exercise has been shown to mitigate declines in inhibitory control under long duration, high intensity exercise ( Cantelon et al, 2019 ). Additionally, research has demonstrated that mental resource allocation, perception of effort and prefrontal cortex activation are differentially affected when exercise end-point is known vs. unknown ( Radel et al, 2017 ; Wingfield et al, 2019 ), yet it remains unknown how such anticipation may influence cognitive function during exercise.…”