Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Investigation Into The Impact Of Acute Stress On Encoding In Older Adults, Amy M. Smith, Katinka Dijkstra, Leamarie Gordon, L. Michael Romero, Ayanna K. Thomas

Psychology Department Faculty Works

Acute psychological stress commonly occurs in young and older adults’ lives. Though several studies have examined the influence of stress on how young adults learn new information, the present study is the first to directly examine these effects in older adults. Fifty older adults (M age = 71.9) were subjected to either stress induction or a control task before learning two types of information: a short video and a series of pictures. Twenty-four hours later, they were exposed to misleading information about the video and then completed memory tests for the video and pictures. Heart rate and cortisol measures …