Better not to deal with two tasks at the same time when stressed? Acute psychosocial stress reduces task shielding in dual-task performance.

A major control demand in successful dual-task performance is the task-specific separation of task-goal representations and of the related stimulus-response translation processes. In the present study, we investigated how these cognitive control processes of task shielding are affected by acute psychosocial stress. Fifty-six healthy participants were exposed to either an acute psychosocial stressor (the Trier Social Stress Test) or a standardized control situation prior to a dual task. Task shielding was assessed by analyzing the interference of Task 2 processing on prioritized Task 1 performance. Following successful stress induction, as indicated by increases in salivary α-amylase (sAA) and cortisol that reflect increases in sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity, respectively, stressed individuals displayed reduced task shielding relative to controls. This result was further substantiated by a correlation between treatment-related increase in cortisol, but not sAA, and between-task interference, suggesting a potential role of the HPA stress response for the development of the observed effects. As an additional finding, when the volunteers were categorized with regard to their action-state orientation, their orientation did not interact with stress but did reveal generally increased between-task interference, and thus inferior task shielding, for state-oriented as compared to action-oriented individuals.

Citation

Franziska Plessow, Susann Schade, Clemens Kirschbaum, Rico Fischer. Better not to deal with two tasks at the same time when stressed? Acute psychosocial stress reduces task shielding in dual-task performance. Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience. 2012 Sep;12(3):557-70

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PMID: 22684896

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