ArticleFrontiers in psychology2016
Effects of Acute Laboratory Stress on Executive Functions.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinically Relevant Executive Functions Tests Performance after COVID-19.Behavioural neurology · 2023Pooled it
- The Role of Background Acoustic Stimuli in Dual Tasks: A Study on Postural Control Performance.Brain and behavior · 2025Trial
- Short-Term Effects of Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback on Working Memory.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2024Trial
- Social-networks use as adaptive or maladaptive strategy for coping with stress.Scientific reports · 2023Trial
- Cannabidiol and neural correlates of threat anticipation in alcohol use disorder.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Mental rotation performance after acute stress.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Stress modulates gastric interoception depending on eating traits and emotion regulation: evidence from the magic table.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Discrimination and vigilance as psychosocial pathways from food insecurity to cognitive difficulty among U.S. adults: a moderated mediation analysis.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Exploring the Link Between Stress and Working Memory in Adults.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Directed exploration is reduced by an aversive interoceptive state induction in healthy individuals but not in those with affective disorders.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Challenge Your Body, Challenge Your Mind: the Combined Effect of Fitness Level and Stress Appraisal on Stress Responses and Subsequent Cognitive Performance.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2025Article
- Directed exploration is reduced by an aversive interoceptive state induction in healthy individuals but not in those with affective disorders.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Comparative Effectiveness of In-Person and Virtual Picture-Naming Treatment for Poststroke Anomia.American journal of speech-language pathology · 2025Article
- Cognitive training improves executive function and self-efficacy in young women with chronic stroke: a pilot study.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of cold-water exposure on mental health.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- A comprehensive evaluation of the neurocognitive predictors of problematic alcohol use, eating, pornography, and internet use: A 6-month longitudinal study.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2024Article
- Acute psychosocial stress modulates neural and behavioral substrates of cognitive control.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- Pupil Dynamics, Salivary Alpha-Amylase, and Prefrontal Haemodynamics in Response to Very Light Exercise.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2024Article
- Sleep/wake regularity influences how stress shapes executive function.Frontiers in sleep · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent research indicates that stress can affect executive functioning. However, previous results are mixed with respect to the direction and size of effects, especially when considering different subcomponents of executive functions. The current study systematically investigates the effects of stress on the five components of executive functions proposed by Smith and Jonides (1999): attention and inhibition; task management; planning; monitoring; and coding. Healthy participants (N = 40) were either exposed to the computerized version of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test as a stressor (N = 20), or to a rest condition (N = 20). Stress reactions were assessed with heart rate and subjective measures. After the experimental manipulation, all participants performed tasks that measure the different executive functions. The manipulation check indicates that stress induction was successful (i.e., the stress group showed a higher heart rate and higher subjective responses than the control group). The main results demonstrate that stressed participants show a poorer performance compared with unstressed participants in all executive subcomponents, with the exception of monitoring. Effect sizes for the tasks that reveal differences between stressed and unstressed participants are high. We conclude that the laboratory stressor used here overall reduced executive functioning.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.