Acute stress impacts reaction times in older but not in young adults in a flanker task

Author:

Mikneviciute GretaORCID,Allaert Jens,Pulopulos Matias M.,De Raedt Rudi,Kliegel Matthias,Ballhausen Nicola

Abstract

AbstractAcute psychosocial stress effects on inhibition have been investigated in young adults, but little is known about these effects in older adults. The present study investigated effects of the Trier Social Stress Test on cognitive inhibition (i.e., ability to ignore distracting information) using a cross-over (stress vs. control) design in healthy young (N = 50; 18–30 years; Mage = 23.06) versus older adults (N = 50; 65–84 years; Mage = 71.12). Cognitive inhibition was measured by a letter flanker task and psychophysiological measures (cortisol, heart rate, subjective stress) validated the stress induction. The results showed that while stress impaired overall accuracy across age groups and sessions, stress (vs. control) made older adults’ faster in session 1 and slower in session 2. Given that session 2 effects were likely confounded by practice effects, these results suggest that acute psychosocial stress improved older adults’ RTs on a novel flanker task but impaired RTs on a practiced flanker task. That is, the interaction between stress and learning effects might negatively affect response execution when testing older adults on flanker tasks. If confirmed by future research, these results might have important implications especially in settings where repeated cognitive testing is performed under acute stress.

Funder

Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung

Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) LIVES – Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives

Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek

Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Subject

Multidisciplinary

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