Schuch, S. & Koch, I.
RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
How stress affects cognition has long been a focus of research. Of particular interest is how stress alters cognitive control processes, which allow humans to flexibly adapt their behaviour to changing situational constraints. One theoretical idea that has been put forward is that stress leads to increased selectivity of attention, and to increased inhibitory control. We investigated this idea applying different task-switching paradigms. We will present data showing that (1) the asymmetry between the dominant and non-dominant task in a Stroop-like paradigm is more pronounced under stress, (2) the costs of switching back to a recently abandoned task (n-2 repetition costs) are increased under stress. These findings are consistent with the idea that stress increases the difference in activation between relevant and irrelevant tasks, that is, that stress leads to increased inhibitory control. The present results will be discussed in relation to other empirical findings and theoretical approaches.