Stress impairs retrieval of socially relevant information

STRESS REPLACEMENT ARTICLE

I chose this article because it would be good lit review for our project. We are wanting to test participants stress before and after performing a timed task. This article is was about research interested in testing the effects of stress on retrieval memory of such things as birthdays, events, names, etc. The participants were tested twice where they had to learn details of some biographical notes and then either introduced to a control or a stressor. The researchers asked them to retrieve the information they learned when cortisol levels were expected to be high. Their hypothesis was that social memory recall would be impaired after being introduced to a stressor. The researchers tested 15 women and 14 men with no major differences in their age or BMI. They scheduled the tests for 3 to 5 in the afternoon so that the circadian rhythm wouldn’t affect cortisol levels and participants were not allowed to eat, smoke, or drink anything but water 2 hrs before the experiment. When arriving to the experiment, participants were ask to encode 2 biographical notes which was a memory subtask and then were asked to provide saliva examples to test cortisol levels prestress at 0 minutes. Secondly, participants were told they would have to give a 10 minute speech in which they knew nothing about and then the researchers took their saliva samples again at 15 min. Thirdly, they had to perform a job interview in front of a camera for 5 mins and then give saliva samples again at 25 min. Two more stressors were introduced and cortisol tests were performed at 50 mins and 75 minutes. The control group didn’t give saliva samples and did not have any stressors introduced. They found that social memory retrieval was significantly reduced after stress. This research would be a good basis for our study because we can see that stressors introduced will have an affect on cortisol levels.

http://psycnet.apa.org.ezproxy.utm.edu/journals/bne/124/2/288.pdf

Stress impairs retrieval of socially relevant information. Merz, Christian J.;Wolf, Oliver T.;Henning. Jürgen.Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol 124(2), Apr 2010, 288-293. doi: 10.1037/a0018942