Stress‐induced cortisol secretion impairs detection performance in x‐ray baggage screening for hidden weapons by screening novices

Abstract

Aviation security strongly depends on screeners' performance in the detection of threat objects in x-ray images of passenger bags. We examined for the first time the effects of stress and stress-induced cortisol increases on detection performance of hidden weapons in an x-ray baggage screening task. We randomly assigned 48 participants either to a stress or a nonstress group. The stress group was exposed to a standardized psychosocial stress test (TSST). Before and after stress/nonstress, participants had to detect threat objects in a computer-based object recognition test (X-ray ORT). We repeatedly measured salivary cortisol and X-ray ORT performance before and after stress/nonstress. Cortisol increases in reaction to psychosocial stress induction but not to nonstress independently impaired x-ray detection performance. Our results suggest that stress-induced cortisol increases at peak reactivity impair x-ray screening performance.

Acute Stress Improves Concentration Performance

“…To detect an expected effect size of .35, the sample size of n = 48 was calculated a priori for the previous study (Thomas et al, 2014). Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS (version 25) statistical software package for Macintosh (IBM SPSS Statistics, Somers, NY).…”

“…The current investigation is part of a larger research project investigating the effects of acute stress on cognitive function (Thomas et al, 2014). We recruited medication-free physically and mentally healthy male volunteers aged between 18 and 40 years by online advertisement and mailing lists at the University of Zurich.…”

“…Interested individuals were screened by a telephone interview using an extensive health questionnaire (Wirtz et al, 2006). Specific exclusion criteria as obtained by participants’ self-report were the following: clinical psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders, current infectious diseases, allergies and atopic diathesis, rheumatic diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, liver and renal diseases, HIV, cancer, elevated blood sugar and diabetes, elevated cholesterol, heart disease, hypertension, varicosis, thrombotic diseases, alcohol and illicit drug abuse, smoking more than four cigarettes per day, and previous participation in studies using stress induction by TSST (Thomas et al, 2014). The initially recruited total sample size was 48 participants (Thomas et al, 2014).…”

“…Specific exclusion criteria as obtained by participants' self-report were the following: clinical psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders, current infectious diseases, allergies and atopic diathesis, rheumatic diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, liver and renal diseases, HIV, cancer, elevated blood sugar and diabetes, elevated cholesterol, heart disease, hypertension, varicosis, thrombotic diseases, alcohol and illicit drug abuse, smoking more than four cigarettes per day, and previous participation in studies using stress induction by TSST (Thomas et al, 2014). The initially recruited total sample size was 48 participants (Thomas et al, 2014). For this part of the study, one participant (of the control condition) had to be excluded due to incompletion of the d2 Test of Attention (please see section "Concentration Performance") after stress as main variable of interest rendering a final sample size of 47.…”

Agent-Based Modelling for Security Risk Assessment

“…These factors were shown to be influential on the performance of X-Ray officers in literature [6,16]. Specifically, it is defined as follows:…”