Immediate effects of psychosocial stress on attention depend on subjective experience and not directly on stress-related physiological changes

Abstract

Acute psychosocial stress is associated with physiological, subjective and cognitive changes. In particular, attention, which is considered one of the main processes driving cognition, has been related to different stress outcomes, such as anxiety, cortisol levels and autonomic responses, individually. Nonetheless, their specific contributions to and association with attention is still not fully understood. To study this association, 42 male participants were asked to perform an attentional task just before and immediately after being exposed to either an experimental treatment designed to induce psychosocial stress using the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) or a matching stress-free control condition. The salivary cortisol concentration, heart rate, and selfreported anxiety were measured to assess the physiological response to stress and the subjective experience during the protocol. As expected, psychosocial stress induced increases in heart rate, salivary cortisol levels and anxiety. The behavioral analysis revealed that members of the control group performed better on the attentional task after the protocol, while members of the TSST group showed no changes. Moreover, after dividing the stress group into sub-groups of participants with high and low anxiety, we observed that participants in the high-anxiety group not only failed to perform better but also performed worse. Finally, after testing several single-level mediation models, we found that anxiety is sufficient to explain the changes in attention and that it mediates the effects between heart rate and cortisol levels on attention. Our results suggest that the immediate effects of acute psychosocial stress on attention are highly dependent on the participant's subjective experience, which, in turn, is affected and can mediate stress-related physiological changes.

Increase in Beta Power Reflects Attentional Top-Down Modulation After Psychosocial Stress Induction

“…Furthermore, we did not find significant correlations between behavioral performance and physiological activation parameters, but physiological activation correlated positively with the self-reported state of anxiety. This correlation bears out the notion that, at this temporal scale, the physiological responses to stressful experiences may play a role in the psychological perception of stress rather than directly affecting attention (Palacios-Garcia et al, 2017). Second, we conducted electrophysiological recordings at several stages of the experiment.…”

The Impact of Social Stress on Cold and Hot Attention for Youth with Learning Disabilities: A Behavioural and ERP Investigation

“…The bulk of existing research examining the impact of stress on attention has been conducted with typically developing samples, with a considerably smaller pool of studies using clinical samples that experience anxiety (e.g., Palacios-Garcia et al, 2017) or post-traumatic stress disorder (e.g., Vasterling et al, 1998). To date, no known studies have investigated the impact of stress on attentional ability in youth with LD (or an LD sample of any age).…”

The Impact of Social Stress on Cold and Hot Attention for Youth with Learning Disabilities: A Behavioural and ERP Investigation

“…The bulk of existing research examining the impact of stress on attention has been conducted with typically developing samples, with a considerably smaller pool of studies using clinical samples that experience anxiety (e.g., Palacios-Garcia et al, 2017) or post-traumatic stress disorder (e.g., Vasterling et al, 1998). To date, no known studies have investigated the impact of stress on attentional ability in youth with LD (or an LD sample of any age).…”