Experimental Psychology Unit, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Human Science, Medical School Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2024 May 11;14(1):10824. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-61162-8.
Acute stress is assumed to affect executive processing of stimulus information, although extant studies have yielded heterogeneous findings. The temporal flanker task, in which a target stimulus is preceded by a distractor of varying utility, offers a means of investigating various components involved in the adjustment of information processing and conflict control. Both behavioral and EEG data obtained with this task suggest stronger distractor-related response activation in conditions associated with higher predictivity of the distractor for the upcoming target. In two experiments we investigated distractor-related processing and conflict control after inducing acute stress (Trier Social Stress Test). Although the stressed groups did not differ significantly from unstressed control groups concerning behavioral markers of attentional adjustment (i.e., Proportion Congruent Effect), or event-related sensory components in the EEG (i.e., posterior P1 and N1), the lateralized readiness potential demonstrated reduced activation evoked by (predictive) distractor information under stress. Our results suggest flexible adjustment of attention under stress but hint at decreased usage of nominally irrelevant stimulus information for biasing response selection.
急性应激被认为会影响对刺激信息的执行处理，尽管现有研究得出的结果存在差异。时间性侧翼任务（temporal flanker task）中，目标刺激之前会出现一个分心物，其有用性不同，这为研究信息处理和冲突控制中涉及的各种成分提供了一种方法。使用该任务获得的行为和 EEG 数据均表明，在与分心物对即将到来的目标的可预测性更高相关的条件下，分心物相关的反应激活更强。在两项实验中，我们在诱导急性应激（特里尔社会应激测试）后研究了分心物相关的处理和冲突控制。尽管应激组在注意力调整的行为标记（即比例一致效应）或 EEG 中的事件相关感觉成分（即后 P1 和 N1）方面与未受应激的对照组没有显著差异，但侧化准备电位显示出在应激下对（预测性）分心物信息的激活减少。我们的结果表明应激下注意力的灵活调整，但暗示对名义上不相关的刺激信息的使用减少，以影响反应选择。
