title: The impact of psychosocial stress on conceptual knowledge retrieval.
abstract: The acquisition of conceptual knowledge in scientific domains is among the central aims of school instruction because this semantic declarative knowledge helps individuals make interferences and explain complex phenomena. Recent research shows that naïve concepts acquired during childhood persist in long-term memory long after learning the scientifically correct concepts in school. In this study, we investigated the effects of stress on the retrieval of these conceptual representations. To this end, 40 healthy men were randomly assigned to either psychosocial stress or a control condition and evaluated, as quickly and accurately as possible, statements that were compatible with scientific concepts or incompatible with those concepts. Some of these statements were true and some were false. Incompatible statements in this case are statements which are in line with adults' scientific concepts, but not with children's naïve theories. In contrast, compatible statements are in line with both. Stress induction was successful as evidenced by increases in blood pressure and cortisol concentrations in the stress group compared to the control group. Responses were delayed and less accurate for incompatible compared to compatible statements. Psychosocial stress had no main effect on retrieval, but abolished reaction time differences on false- vs. true-incompatible statements. This effect was mirrored in correlations between individuals' cortisol increases and reaction times. These results suggest that stress, as embodied by increases in cortisol concentrations, interferes with the retrieval of conceptual knowledge. They help to better understand conceptual knowledge retrieval in real-life situations such as examinations or problem solving in the workplace.
authors: Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology, University of Trier, Johanniterufer 15, 54290 Trier, Germany; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Cognitive Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Universitätsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany. Electronic address: Christian.J.Merz@rub.de.
authors: Christian J
authors: CJ
authors: Merz
authors: Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology, University of Trier, Johanniterufer 15, 54290 Trier, Germany; Department of Educational Psychology, University of Trier, Universitätsring 15, 54286 Trier, Germany. Electronic address: s1fldiet@uni-trier.de.
authors: Florian
authors: F
authors: Dietsch
authors: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Trier, Universitätsring 15, 54286 Trier, Germany. Electronic address: mschneid@uni-trier.de.
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Schneider
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000378:metabolism*; D019359:Knowledge; D008297:Male; D057567:Memory, Long-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000378:metabolism / Q000503:physiopathology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D006854:Hydrocortisone
keywords: Cortisol; Glucocorticoids; Naïve theory; SECPT; Scientific theory; Stress hormones