Abstract

Cognitive processes that afford us the ability to control thoughts and achieve goal-directed behavior are known as executive functions. Empirical evidence in the past few years has demonstrated that executive functions can be influenced by acute stress. The impact of acute stress on cognitive flexibility, a key aspect of executive functions, has received little attention in the literature. We present the results of two experiments conducted to examine the effect of acute stress on cognitive flexibility. Acute stress was induced using the cold pressor task. Cognitive flexibility was assessed using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Across both experiments acute stress had an attenuating effect on task switching on the WCST. Our findings also indicate that this effect was moderated by the participant’s gender. In Study 1, we observed that following stress exposure male participants in the stress condition made more perseverative errors than participants in the control group. In Study 2, we examined the bilateral hemodynamics in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) during acute stress induction using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Our analysis indicated that functional oxyHb signals fluctuated with greater amplitude than systemic components for participants in the stress group relative to those in the control group. In addition, oxyHb levels post stress induction were correlated with performance on the WCST for the male participants in the stress group only. Concordant with previous reports, our findings indicate that acute stress impacts cognitive flexibility in males and females differentially. Our work also demonstrates the feasibility of using fNIRS as a practical and objective technique for the examination of hemodynamics in the PFC during acute stress.

Highlights

  • Executive functions are a set of top-down mental processes that afford us the ability to control our thoughts to achieve a goal (Bunge et al, 2002; Diamond, 2013)

  • Behavioral Results: Perseverative Errors Since the results of Study 1 had indicated that perseverative error was the only variable that was influenced by acute stress, we focused our analysis on that variable for Study 2

  • Despite the fact that cognitive flexibility is a key component of executive functions (Miyake et al, 2000; Diamond, 2013), and essential to achieving goals (Plessow et al, 2011), few studies have examined the effect of acute stress on cognitive flexibility (Plessow et al, 2011; Shields et al, 2016a)

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Executive functions are a set of top-down mental processes that afford us the ability to control our thoughts to achieve a goal (Bunge et al, 2002; Diamond, 2013). In the past few decades, research has shown that executive functions develop slowly over time in tandem with a maturing prefrontal cortex (Diamond, 2013). Working memory or monitoring refers to processes that allow individuals to hold information in their mind and manipulate it (Diamond, 2013). Cognitive flexibility is the aspect of executive functions that is often last to emerge in development (Diamond, 2013). Referred to as shifting, provides the individual with the ability to flexibly change their behavior based on shifting rules, criteria or tasks (Ionescu, 2012). Cognitive flexibility is sometimes used as an indicator of an individual’s ability to adapt to contextual and situational constraints (Goldfarb et al, 2017)

Objectives
Methods
Results
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call