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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 19, 2026

Using Practice Testing, Public Speaking, and Source Monitoring to Examine the Influences of Learning Strategies and Stress on Episodic Memory

Using Practice Testing, Public Speaking, and Source Monitoring to Examine the Influences of Learning Strategies and Stress on Episodic Memory

Published on: June 14, 2019

Learning under stress impairs memory formation.

Lars Schwabe¹, Oliver T Wolf

¹Department of Cognitive Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Universitaetsstrasse 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany. Lars.Schwabe@rub.de

Neurobiology of Learning and Memory

|October 3, 2009

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Learning while stressed impairs memory recall and recognition. This study investigated how stress during learning affects memory performance in healthy adults, finding a general memory deficit regardless of word type.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Stress Research

Background:

Existing research shows stress before or after learning impacts memory.
However, the effects of learning *during* a stressful experience are less understood.
This gap highlights the need to investigate stress's immediate impact on memory encoding.

Purpose of the Study:

To examine the effect of learning under acute stress on subsequent memory performance.
To determine if word emotionality or stress-relatedness influences memory impairment.
To compare the impact of learning under stress between men and women.

Main Methods:

Forty-eight healthy participants (men and women) learned emotional and neutral words.
Participants experienced either a stress condition (socially evaluated cold pressor test) or a control condition during learning.
Memory was tested 24 hours later using free recall and recognition tasks.

Main Results:

Learning under stress significantly reduced both free recall and recognition performance.
This memory impairment occurred regardless of the words' emotional content or relation to the stressor.
Women showed better free recall than men, although stress effects were similar across sexes.

Conclusions:

Learning under stress demonstrably impairs human memory formation.
The findings challenge current theories by showing a broad memory deficit, independent of word characteristics.
This suggests stress during the learning phase itself has a detrimental effect on memory consolidation.