Selective attention improves under stress: Implications for theories of social cognition.

Chajut, Eran; Algom, Daniel

doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.231

Cited by 314 publications

(265 citation statements)

References 94 publications

(156 reference statements)

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“…Stress was induced by a procedure previously used by Chajut and Algom (2003). Before the actual task-shifting experiment, in which an explicit cuing procedure with two CSI levels was used, all subjects worked on a short intelligence test.…”

Section: Rationale Of the Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following the procedure of Chajut and Algom (2003), subjects completed three multiple-choice tasks, each containing 10 items, at the beginning of the session. The first task was a wordselection task, in which subjects chose the word that did not fit semantically with the other words listed (e.g., table, chair, bird, scaffold, bed).…”

Section: Iq Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been suggested that the cognitive system can adapt to depleted resources by adopting less capacity-demanding strategies (Hockey, 1997). A typical example is the reduction in Stroop interference observed under conditions of stress (Chajut & Algom, 2003;Huguet, Dumas, & Monteil, 2004;Huguet, Galvaing, Monteil, & Dumas, 1999). This effect probably occurs because the system increases its selectivity and in this way restricts the amount of input in order to compensate for reduced available resources (Chajut & Algom, 2003).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Cognitive Control Under Stress

2007

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ABSTRACT-This study investigated the effect of stress on cognitive control in task shifting. Subjects shifted between two tasks in an explicit cuing paradigm. Shift costs (i.e., performance decrements on task shifts relative to task repetitions) were measured for a long and a short cuestimulus interval (CSI). Stress was varied by administering low-stress and high-stress IQ scales to two groups of subjects. In the low-stress group, shift costs were reduced with an increased CSI, a result that typically indicates anticipatory and shift-specific task-set reconfiguration. In the high-stress group, however, shift costs were independent of the CSI. This result is consistent with the idea that stress induces a change in the reconfiguration strategy, possibly to adapt to depleted resources.

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Section: Rationale Of the Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Iq Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Cognitive Control Under Stress

2007

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“…However, enhanced levels of NA have been shown to influence memory for (Wessel & Merckelbach, 1997), or selective attention to (Chajut & Algom, 2003;Fenske & Eastwood, 2003;Finucane & Powers, 2010) peripheral stimuli, therefore suggesting that the spillover of attention to irrelevant stimuli might not be invariable, but instead flexibly modulated by situational factors (e.g., affective state). In line with this view, Schmitz and colleagues (Schmitz, De Rosa, & Anderson, 2009) showed that the size of the attentional focus could be modulated depending on the current affective state of the participant.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative affective state mimics effects of perceptual load on spatial perception.

Rossi

2013

Emotion

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Recent electrophysiological evidence showed that perceptual load and negative affective state can produce very similar early attention gating effects in early visual areas, modulating the processing of peripheral stimuli. Here we assessed the question whether these modulatory effects of perceptual load and negative affect (NA) lead to comparable changes in spatial perception abilities, which could be captured at the behavioral level. High perceptual load at fixation impaired the precise spatial localization of peripheral textures, relative to a low perceptual load condition. By contrast, the coarse spatial encoding of these peripheral stimuli was not loaddependent, under neutral affective conditions. The transient experience of NA was induced in an independent sample of participants, who showed decreased performance in the localization task, even at a low perceptual load level. These results were observed in the absence of any systematic eye movement towards the peripheral textures. These findings suggest that spatial location perception is an attention-dependent, as well as state-dependent process, in the sense that NA, very much like load, can dynamically shape early spatial perceptual abilities. Although NA mimics load during spatial localization, we discuss the possibility that these two effects likely depend upon non-overlapping brain networks.

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“…Similar to what occurs in high performing athletes, the medical literature has suggested that Bgood^stress can positively influence performance compared to Bbad^or no stress. 2,3 Thus, just as athletes spend extensive amounts of time training to overcome obstacles and stress, perhaps a part of medical education should involve ways to teach students and residents how to lessen negative stress and improve positive stress. Educating trainees about personal wellness is currently being addressed by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), which requires each residency program to provide resident and faculty education on trainee alertness and fatigue mitigation.…”

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confidence: 99%

Reflective Practice and Stress: Helpful, Harmful or Uninfluential in Critical Thinking

Windish

2015

J GEN INTERN MED

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R emember the first time you watched a master clinician work through a diagnostic dilemma or clinical unknown case and easily arrive at the correct diagnosis? That person most likely seemed calm with little stress, asked the right questions at the right time, and often reflected on the information they gleaned from the case. If the clinician described how they arrived at their diagnosis, you were probably in awe at how they solved the case using their critical thinking skills. While critical thinking is essential for effective patient care, this highly complex process is not easily taught or measured.Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. 1 Thus, while possessing medical knowledge is a necessary part of critical thinking, many factors play a role in the process, such as data gathering skills, clinical context, patient preferences, personal reactions to stress and reflective practice. Research demonstrates that some stress and thoughtful reflection are beneficial to the thinking process, 2-4 yet there is no consensus on how to positively manage stress or use reflection in daily clinical care. Two articles 5,6 in this issue of JGIM explore the areas of stress and reflection on critical thinking among trainees.The study by Pottier and colleagues 5 explored the role of stressors on a medical student's history taking, physical examination, and clinical reasoning. The authors performed a study of medical students who participated in two scenarios with standardized patients with familiar disease processes. Students conducted a history and physical exam and were asked to generate a diagnosis with a differential based on the clinical data obtained during the scenario. During their patient encounters, students were presented with two stressors: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic stressors were manifested by the patient's cooperativeness and mood such that the patient was either: a) aggressive with negativity and lacked confidence in the student's competence; or b) pleasant without challenges to the student. Intrinsic stressors were defined as stressful components integral to the encounter based on clinical presentation, and were exhibited by a patient with either high clinical severity (dyspnea from an acute pulmonary embolism) or low clinical severity (acute abdominal pain in a relatively healthy patient). Students were randomized to two of four clinical scenarios with a balance of high and low clinical severity in an aggressive or pleasant patient. Subjective stress and anxiety responses were assessed before and after each experience, as were completeness in physical examination, communication skills, diagnostic accuracy and differential diagnosis argumentation. The authors found that each type of stress had a different effect on a student's anxiety and clinical performance. Results indicated that extrinsic stress increased personal anxiety, bu...

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Selective attention improves under stress: Implications for theories of social cognition.

Cited by 314 publications

References 94 publications

Cognitive Control Under Stress

Cognitive Control Under Stress

Negative affective state mimics effects of perceptual load on spatial perception.

Reflective Practice and Stress: Helpful, Harmful or Uninfluential in Critical Thinking

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