Plieger Thomas, Felten Andrea, Diks Elena, Tepel Jessica, Mies Melanie, Reuter Martin
a Department of Psychology, Laboratory of Neurogenetics , University of Bonn , Bonn , Germany.
b Center for Economics & Neuroscience (CENs) , University of Bonn , Bonn , Germany.
Cogn Neuropsychiatry. 2017 Jan;22(1):69-82. doi: 10.1080/13546805.2016.1261014. Epub 2016 Nov 28.
There is a controversy in the literature whether stress and related cortisol responses are beneficial or impairing for cognitive functioning. Conflicting results might be due to individual differences in stress reactivity and cognitive load of the applied tasks.
N = 48 participants underwent the Socially Evaluated Cold Pressor Test and were confronted with the Frankfurter Aufmerksamkeits-Inventar-2 (FAIR-2) which is a low-load attention task and two subscales of the Intelligenz-Struktur-Test 2000 R (I-S-T 2000R) as a high-load reasoning task before and after the stressor. Participants were post hoc divided into high (stress induced cortisol increase of ≥1.5 nmol/l) vs. low-cortisol responders.
Cortisol responders showed an increased attentional performance in the post-stress condition (η > .14). However, there were neither stress or responder main effects nor an interaction effect on reasoning abilities.
Results of the present study show that stress related changes in cognitive performance are due to individual differences in cortisol response and the cognitive load of the performed task. Future studies will show if these results are also valid for alternative cognitive tasks and if they can be replicated in female participants.
文献中存在争议，即压力及相关的皮质醇反应对认知功能是有益还是有害。相互矛盾的结果可能是由于压力反应性的个体差异以及所应用任务的认知负荷。
48名参与者接受了社会评价冷加压试验，并在应激源前后面对法兰克福注意力测验-2（FAIR-2，一种低负荷注意力任务）以及智力结构测验2000R（I-S-T 2000R）的两个分量表（一种高负荷推理任务）。参与者事后被分为高皮质醇反应者（应激诱导的皮质醇增加≥1.5 nmol/l）和低皮质醇反应者。
皮质醇反应者在应激后条件下表现出注意力表现增强（η > .14）。然而，在推理能力方面既没有应激或反应者的主效应，也没有交互效应。
本研究结果表明，认知表现中与压力相关的变化是由于皮质醇反应的个体差异以及所执行任务的认知负荷。未来的研究将表明这些结果是否也适用于其他认知任务，以及是否能在女性参与者中得到重复。
