Acute stress shifts the balance between controlled and automatic processes in prospective memory

Möschl, Marcus; Walser, Moritz; Plessow, Franziska; Goschke, Thomas; Fischer, Rico

doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2017.06.002

Cited by 26 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Taken together, the available data provide evidence showing that stress may absorb cognitive resources. This may lead to a shift towards resource‐saving cognitive strategies under highly demanding task conditions . This assumption is in line with our finding that time‐dependent PM is more vulnerable to stress than event‐dependent PM.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…It is in line with this view that research on RM demonstrated an activation shift under stress from neural networks associated with top‐down processes to networks supporting bottom‐up processes . A similar shift on the behavioural level of PM processes has been reported recently . In that previous study, the TSST was applied before an ongoing PM task with a high‐ and a low‐demanding condition.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

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Stress‐related cortisol responsivity modulates prospective memory

Glienke

Piefke

2017

J Neuroendocrinology

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It is known that there is inter-individual variation in behavioural and physiological stress reactions to the same stressor. The present study aimed to examine the impact of cortisol responsivity on performance in a complex real life-like prospective memory (PM) paradigm by a re-analysis of data published previously, with a focus on the taxonomy of cognitive dimensions of PM. Twenty-one male subjects were stressed with the Socially Evaluated Cold Pressor Test (SECPT) before the planning of intentions. Another group of 20 males underwent a control procedure. Salivary cortisol was measured to assess the intensity of the biological stress response. Additionally, participants rated the subjective experience of stress on a 5-point rating scale. Stressed participants were post-hoc differentiated in high (n = 11) and low cortisol responders (n = 10). Cortisol niveau differed significantly between the two groups, whereas subjective stress ratings did not. PM performance of low cortisol responders was stable across time and the PM performance of controls declined. High cortisol responders showed a nominally weaker PM retrieval across the early trails and significantly improved only on the last trial. The data demonstrate for the first time that participants with a low cortisol responsivity may benefit from stress exposure before the planning phase of PM. PM performance of high cortisol responders shows a more inconsistent pattern, which may be interpreted in the sense of a recency effect in PM retrieval. Alternatively, high cortisol responses may have a deteriorating effect on PM retrieval, which disappeared on the last trials of the task as a result of the decrease of cortisol levels across time. Importantly, the data also demonstrate that the intensity of cortisol responses does not necessarily correspond to the intensity of the mental experience of stress.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Stress‐related cortisol responsivity modulates prospective memory

Glienke

Piefke

2017

J Neuroendocrinology

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“…The next step in our investigation was to analyse next-morning PM task performance. Previous studies examining effects of laboratory-induced stress on similar tasks have delivered inconsistent results ( Nater et al, 2006 ; Walser et al, 2013 ; Glienke and Piefke, 2016 ; Möschl et al, 2017 ; Szöllösi et al, 2018 ). However, our study differs from those in two important methodological aspects: First, in those studies, participants were still experiencing the stressor’s effects (including elevated CORT levels) during retrieval and execution of the PM intention.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Studies examining effects of laboratory-induced stress on PM performance have delivered inconsistent results. For instance, whereas some ( Nater et al, 2006 ; Walser et al, 2013 ; Möschl et al, 2017 ) report that stress exposure has no effect on event-based PM, others ( Glienke and Piefke, 2016 ; Szöllösi et al, 2018 ) report enhanced poststress performance on such tasks. However, none of those study designs featured a significant delay between intention encoding and retrieval/execution, and in most cases, both phases of the PM process were instantiated under stressful conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bedtime Stress Increases Sleep Latency and Impairs Next-Day Prospective Memory Performance

2020

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The cognitive construct of prospective memory (PM) refers to the capacity to encode, retain and execute delayed intentions (e.g. to remember to buy milk on the way home). Although previous research suggests that PM performance is enhanced by healthy sleep, conclusions tend to be drawn based on designs featuring ecologically unnatural manipulations (e.g. total sleep deprivation). This study investigates whether a more common everyday experience (bedtime stress) affects next-day PM performance and, in so doing, also contributes to the heretofore inconsistent literature on stress and PM. Forty young adults received PM task instructions and were then assigned to either a stress condition (exposure to a laboratory-based stress-induction manipulation; n = 20, 9 women) or a non-stress condition (exposure to a non-stressful control manipulation; n = 20, 12 women). After completing the experimental manipulation, all participants had their objective sleep quality measured over a full night of polysomnographic monitoring. Upon awakening, they completed the PM task. Analyses detected significant between-group differences in terms of stress outcomes, sleep quality and PM performance: Participants exposed to the manipulation experienced heightened signs of stress (captured using a composite variable that included self-report, psychophysiological and endocrinological measures), had longer sleep latencies and poorer sleep depth and displayed significantly longer reaction times to PM cues. An interaction between experimental condition (being exposed to the stressor) and disrupted sleep (longer sleep latency) significantly predicted poorer next-day PM reaction time. We interpret these findings as indicating that bedtime stress, which leads to heightened presleep arousal, affects sleep processes and, consequently, the deployment of attentional resources during next-day execution of a delayed intention.

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“…Demands on cognitive control can vary as a function of many factors, including the complexity of a given task rule ( Rubinstein et al, 2001 ; Pieczykolan and Huestegge, 2017 ): If the task rule is more/less complex, demands on cognitive control are higher/lower. Lower cognitive controls demands are associated with more automatic response processes, which tend to be less error prone than cognitive control mechanisms, once they are in place ( Möschl et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Neurophysiological Mechanisms Underlying the Adaptability to Varying Cognitive Control Demands

Zink

Stock

Vahid

et al. 2018

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Cognitive control processes are advantageous when routines would not lead to the desired outcome, but this can be ill-advised when automated behavior is advantageous. The aim of this study was to identify neural dynamics related to the ability to adapt to different cognitive control demands – a process that has been referred to as ‘metacontrol.’ A sample of N = 227 healthy subjects that was split in a ‘high’ and ‘low adaptability’ group based on the behavioral performance in a task with varying control demands. To examine the neurophysiological mechanisms, we combined event-related potential (ERP) recordings with source localization and machine learning approaches. The results show that individuals who are better at strategically adapting to different cognitive control demands benefit from automatizing their response processes in situations where little cognitive control is needed. On a neurophysiological level, neither perceptual/attentional selection processes nor conflict monitoring processes paralleled the behavioral data, although the latter showed a descriptive trend. Behavioral differences in metacontrol abilities were only significantly mirrored by the modulation of response-locked P3 amplitudes, which were accompanied by activation differences in insula (BA13) and middle frontal gyrus (BA9). The machine learning result corroborated this by identifying a predictive/classification feature near the peak of the response-locked P3, which arose from the anterior cingulate cortex (BA24; BA33). In short, we found that metacontrol is associated to the ability to manage response selection processes, especially the ability to effectively downregulate cognitive control under low cognitive control requirements, rather than the ability to upregulate cognitive control.

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Acute stress shifts the balance between controlled and automatic processes in prospective memory

Cited by 26 publications

References 67 publications

Stress‐related cortisol responsivity modulates prospective memory

Stress‐related cortisol responsivity modulates prospective memory

Bedtime Stress Increases Sleep Latency and Impairs Next-Day Prospective Memory Performance

On the Neurophysiological Mechanisms Underlying the Adaptability to Varying Cognitive Control Demands

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