The effect of social stress on delay recall and working memory

Abstract

Objective. This study tried to examine the effect of a modified version of Trier social stress test (TSST) on delay recall of Chinese words with different valance, and working memory

Methods. There were a total of 22 male participants in this experiment. The experiment measured the delayed recall capacity for Chinese words of two different delay schedules (1 day and 30 minutes delay). Working memory was also measured by a reading span test. A modified version of Trier social stress test was used as a stressor to induce stress to the participant before the recall tasks and the working memory task. Physiological data and subjective mood was measured three times: before the stress, during the stress, and immediate before the recall tasks. Valance effect, stress induced impairment on declarative memory performance, and working memory performance were tested in this experiment.

Results. The stress indices were not influenced by the stress treatment, and none of the delayed recall category was significantly influenced by the stressor and the working memory was also not influenced by the stressor.

Discussion. One of the possible explanations of the insignificant result is that the level of stress induced in the participant was not high enough to activate hormonal changes which are responsible for the memory impairment.