“…Amylase is an enzyme used to hydrolyze or break down starch molecules in the body. The levels of amylase in the body have been used as an effective measure of stress, including social stress such as performance in front of an audience (Nater, La Marca, Florin, Moses, Langhans, Koller, & Ehlert, 2006;Rohleder, Wolf, Maldonado, & Kirschbaum, 2006;Gordis, Granger, Susman, & Trickett, 2006;Nater, Rohleder, Gaab, Berger, Jud, Kirschbaum, & Ehlert, 2005;Rohleder, Natar, Wolf, Ehlert, & Kirschbaum, 2004), testing (Yamaguchi, Kanemori, Kanemaru, Takai, Mizuno, & Yoshida, 2004), competition (Kivlighan & Granger, 2006), and physical stress (Wetherell, Crown, Lightman, Miles, Kaye, & Vedhara, 2006;Chatterton, Vogelsong, Lu, Ellman, & Hudgens, 1996). Although objective, accurate, and repeatable, this method is time consuming, intrusive (experimentally as well as human intrusive), and costly and requires specialized laboratory equipment to analyze the saliva samples.…”