CAREER: A multimethod approach to rethinking the dynamics of inhibitory control under stress

University Of Arkansas, Fayetteville AR

Investigators

Abstract

The ability to voluntarily stop ourselves from doing or thinking about certain things, referred to as “inhibitory control”, is important for navigating our lives, especially within stressful situations. Indeed, many interventions aimed at improving people’s functioning and/or quality of life, ranging from psychological therapy to military training, attempt to improve this ability. However, our understanding of the effects of stress on inhibitory control is relatively limited. This project characterizes how stressful situations influence the cognitive mechanisms and processes underlying inhibitory control. The results of this project thus have the potential to identify mechanisms that could be targeted by relevant interventions to improve their effectiveness. In addition, the data collected in this project will be used to develop a publicly available novel course, as well as workshops, to disseminate both the knowledge of the project’s results and the technical skills needed to use the project’s methods. The dissemination of these results and technical skills is likely to contribute to long-term societal benefits, such as improved mental health and productivity. Although a number of studies have examined the effects of stress on inhibitory control, current theory and important findings from each area’s primary literature have not been considered in the work combining the two. As a result, conflicting results abound in work on stress and inhibitory control, and some findings are difficult to reconcile with current theories of inhibition under stress. Using experimentally manipulated acute stress, computational cognitive modeling, and both standard and mouse-tracking cognitive tasks, the studies in this project develops a new theory of how stress influences inhibitory control. Analytic methods include not only standard behavioral analysis, but also salivary hormone assays, cognitive model parameter estimation, and analysis of nuanced mouse-tracking dynamics unfolding over time. The goal is to advance our understanding of how contextual factors, such as stress, influence inhibitory control, which contributes to both basic science and may guide the development of interventions to improve inhibitory control. This project is jointly funded by Perception, Action and Cognition and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.