Abstract
Stress has been shown to influence working memory (WM). However, little
is known about the effects of acute stress on pilots’ WM with varying WM
loads. The current study aims to shed more light on this issue.
Forty-two pilots were randomly assigned to the stress or the control
group. The stress group experienced acute stress induced by the modified
Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), and the control group did not receive
any stress induction. Then, all participants performed N-back tasks
under varying levels of WM load (0-back, 1-back, and 2-back) to examine
their WM. We measured their State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scores and
salivary cortisol concentrations repeatedly throughout the experiment to
determine the effects of induced stress. The results showed that (1) the
modified TSST effectively induced acute stress in the stress group; (2)
as the WM load level increased, the reaction time increased, and the
accuracy decreased; and (3) there were no significant differences in
reaction time between the two groups at different WM load conditions.
However, there was an interaction effect for accuracy, which showed that
the accuracy of the stress group was higher than that of the control
group at the medium WM load (1-back). These findings suggest that acute
stress improves pilots’ WM accuracy during moderately difficult tasks.
The results of this study provide a theoretical basis for improving
stress management and training pilots’ WM abilities.