Modulating effects of acute stress on cognitive flexibility in semantic search paradigms
Modulating effects of acute stress on cognitive flexibility in semantic search paradigms

Author(s): Drahomír Michalko, Anton Kováč, Martin Marko
Subject(s): Social psychology and group interaction, Cognitive Psychology, Experimental Pschology
Published by: Masarykova univerzita nakladatelství
Keywords: Physiological arousal; Social stress; Cognitive flexibility; Semantic fluency; Remote semantic associates;
Summary/Abstract: Both semantic fluency and remote associates test (RAT) are believed to load on cognitive flexibility to some extent. We hypothesized that overall performance on remote associates test (in our study: concept access test – CAT) will be related to switching component of semantic fluency, which is believed to reflect cognitive flexibility, but not to clustering component that represents automatic retrieval of closely related concepts. To further investigate these relationships a between-subject experiment was conducted where we utilized a hybrid stress protocol similar to Trier Social Stress Test with physiological measures of electrodermal activity (EDA) and psychological measures of state anxiety STAI-X1. We didn’t observed significant correlation between switching and CAT. Clustering was weakly related to CAT after controlling for shared variance with EDA. We observed weak negative relationship between overall CAT performance and EDA. Switching component was significantly higher in experimental (stress) group than in controls. Clustering was more effective in control group than i n experimental. R esults s uggest t hat CAT/RAT p erformance might t o some degree depend on relatively automatic search processes with low requirements on cognitive control rather than on willful processes reflected in switching. Distinct types of search strategies in semantic fluency test and RAT paradigms are also discussed with attempts to interpret different modulating effects of acute stress on their performance.

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