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Category: Project

Description: A growing body of research implies a decline in core executive functions, such as cognitive inhibition, caused by experimental stress manipulation (Arnsten, 2009; Shields et al., 2016). On the contrary, the conflict literature reports rather inconsistent results due to greater control over response execution under stress. It is still under debate, whether stress affects response conflict and stimulus conflict monitoring in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) distinctively. This study aims at investigating the influence of socially-evaluated cold pressor stress (adapted SECPT; Schwabe et al., 2008) on Stroop interference in EEG time-frequency analysis. Based on prior EEG findings (Dierolf et al., 2017, 2018), we expect a stress-modulated rise in interference control, indexed by brain oscillatory power increase in midfrontal theta frequency (3 – 9 Hz) especially during response conflict but not during stimulus conflict. Furthermore, we investigate the time-dependent modulation of conflict under stress and cortisol responsiveness as potential moderator variables. Our investigation will enable new insight into the neural basis of cognitive conflict processing concerning time-sensitive stress effects in executive control.