Acute stress impairs visual narrative comprehension in younger but not older adults

Visual narrative comprehension is essential for navigating modern society, where information, rules, and news are frequently communicated through images, diagrams, and visual stories. Encoding a coherent narrative from disparate elements is critical for all age groups. Although recent studies report a significant rise in stress and anxiety levels, driven by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and recent geopolitical conflicts, the impact of stress on visual narrative comprehension remains largely underexplored. This study explored how acute stress affects narrative comprehension in younger (N = 203, 18-57 years; M = 23 years; Experiment 1) and older adults (N = 212, 60-85 years; M = 67 years; Experiment 2). Participants were assessed under both acute stress and neutral conditions. A tool for inducing acute stress online employed mathematical and logical tasks under time pressure, along with elements that simulate social stress. Participants were presented with pictorial stories consisting of three panels, with the second panel intentionally left blank. Their task was to comprehend the storyline despite the missing information. On the following page, an image representing a possible bridging event was shown, either depicting the correct or an incorrect inference. Participants were asked to judge whether or not the presented image accurately reflected the missing event in the story. Results revealed that acute stress negatively impacted narrative comprehension in younger adults, while the older adults' comprehension remained unaffected by acute stress. Similarly, younger adults demonstrated reduced confidence in their responses under stress, whereas older adults' confidence levels remained unaffected. These findings highlight the relationship between visual narrative comprehension, stress, and aging, suggesting that, with age and experience, comprehenders may develop more differentiated event schemas, which makes their comprehension processes more resilient to stress. Understanding how cognitive and perceptional processes function under stress is crucial for daily life across all age groups. Our research demonstrates that younger adults exhibit poorer visual narrative comprehension under acute stress, whereas older adults' performance remains stable. This finding suggests that older adults may employ more differentiated event schemas, which help maintain their narrative comprehension in the face of stress. Consequently, narrative comprehension appears to be more resilient compared to other fundamental cognitive skills. These insights could inform interventions and strategies to support cognitive health across different age groups.