The Impact of Multi-level Acute Stress on Behavioral Inhibitory Control: an ERP Study
Date
2023
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Tri-College users only
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Abstract
Prior investigation has shown that both chronic and acute stress can enhance response inhibition, unexpectedly, considering stress' broadly negative impact on executive function. This study was interested in observing whether this effect was true across all stress levels, or if stress might enhance this executive function at mild levels and be to its detriment at higher levels, following the Yerkes-Dodson law of arousal and performance. Participants performed a Go/NoGo task at baseline and following three serial subtraction stress inductions of increasing severity in counterbalanced order to assess response inhibition at various levels of stress. During each session, participants' EEG signals were recorded. Self-report affect scores and heart rate were used to assess the successfulness of the stress inductions. Contrary to what we hypothesized, results failed to replicate the findings of other labs where stress enhanced response inhibition, though some evidence was found that stress could harm this executive function. This null finding extended to EEG analyses of N2 and P3 ERP amplitudes. However, P3 and N2 peaks overall, as well as differences between Go and NoGo ERP responsiveness, differed based on scalp region. Further investigation is warranted to understand the discrepancy between our findings and the literature, in particular to understand whether the effect of stress on response inhibition is time sensitive.