High-intensity stress elicits robust cortisol increases, and impairs working memory and visuo-spatial declarative memory in Special Forces candidates: A field experiment

Abstract

While running a selection procedure, 27 male Belgian Special Forces candidates, with a mean age of 27.4 years (SD = 5.1), were randomly assigned to a no-stress control (n = 14) or a high-intensity stress group (n = 13). Participants in the latter group were exposed to an extremely strenuous mock prisoner of war (POW) exercise. Immediately after stress or control treatment, working memory and visuo-spatial declarative memory performances were measured by the digit span (DS) test and the Rey-Osterrieth complex figure (ROCF), respectively. Concurrently, stress levels were assessed by obtaining salivary cortisol measurements and subjectively by the NASA Task Load Index (TLX). As expected, exposure to high-intensity stress led to both robust cortisol increases and significant differences in TLX scores. Stress induction also significantly impaired DS and ROCF performances. Moreover, delta cortisol increases and ROCF performance in the POW stress group showed a significant negative correlation, while DS performances followed the same tendency. Summarizing, the current findings complement and extend previous work on hormonal stress effects, and the subsequent performance deterioration on two memory tests in a unique high-intensity stress environment.

Visuo-spatial path learning, stress, and cortisol secretion following military cadets’ first parachute jump: the effect of increasing task complexity

“…A second potential modulator is the activity level of the adrenergic nervous system (Kuhlmann & Wolf, 2006). This is consistent with the often hypothesized inverted-U-shaped relationship between cognitive performance and both arousal (Salehi, Cordero & Sandi, 2010;Yerkes & Dodson, 1908) and CORT secretion (Andreano & Cahill, 2006) that has been demonstrated under lab conditions (Joëls et al, 2006;Wolf, 2009) and real-life stressors (Morgan, Doran, Steffian, Hazlett & Southwick, 2006;Taverniers, Van Ruysseveldt, Smeets & von Grumbkow, 2010). Additionally, there seem to be indications of effects caused by the complexity of a task.…”

“…Additionally, there seem to be indications of effects caused by the complexity of a task. For example, even highly-intense stress conditions provedto have only a minor impact on the very basic, subsidiary short-term memory (STM; see Taverniers et al, 2010). The effects on the complex, executive, and multicomponent working memory (WM; Baddeley, 2003), on the other hand, are unambiguous.…”

Respuesta psicofisiológica en un salto táctico paracaidista HAHO: caso de Estudio

“…También ha sido evaluado como el estrés de combate produce una disminución en el procesamiento de la información y fatiga del sistema nervioso central, posiblemente debido al alto número de incertidumbres a controlar por el combatiente en el campo de batalla 5 . En estas situaciones, el combatiente puede interpretar esas incertidumbres como posibles elementos desde los cuales puede aparecer una acción hostil que comprometa su integridad, provocando un estado de ansiedad en el cual el cerebro es sobreestimulado 6 , haciendo estas situaciones muy estresantes para el combatiente 7 . Esta respuesta ansiógena afecta tanto a la respuesta psicofisioló-gica como a la memoria operativa del combatiente 7 .…”

“…En estas situaciones, el combatiente puede interpretar esas incertidumbres como posibles elementos desde los cuales puede aparecer una acción hostil que comprometa su integridad, provocando un estado de ansiedad en el cual el cerebro es sobreestimulado 6 , haciendo estas situaciones muy estresantes para el combatiente 7 . Esta respuesta ansiógena afecta tanto a la respuesta psicofisioló-gica como a la memoria operativa del combatiente 7 . Dentro de las unidades de élite de los actuales ejércitos encontramos las brigadas paracaidistas, las cuales además de enfrentarse a las mismas situaciones de combate que el resto de la infantería, tienen que realizar la incursión en la zona de operaciones realizando un salto paracaidista.…”

Mental Chronometry in Officer Involved Shootings

“…It is not uncommon for officers or combat soldiers to experience temporal, auditory, or attentional disruptions that preclude full and complete description of events even from the "single lens" perspective or vantage point of the individual [18]. Chemicals rapidly entering the bloodstream in a state of physiological hyper-arousal will have an impact on sensory perception [19]. A predictable outcome of perceptual distortions is an impact on memory and recall [20].…”