Informational stress in cognitive systems: a review and conceptual synthesis

Modern cognitive environments expose individuals to sustained streams of information that may be complex, uncertain, rapidly changing, or emotionally salient. Such environments can support learning and decision-making but may also require continuing regulation of attention, effort, and information selection. This narrative review examines informational stress as a process-level perspective on the conditions under which sustained informational demands may become stress-related. Drawing on stress appraisal and allostasis, attention and cognitive load, compensatory control, information theory, rational inattention, resource rationality, scarcity, deliberate ignorance, and critical ignoring, we distinguish informational demand from the stress-related response it may generate. Informational stress is defined here as a regulatory process that may arise when sustained informational demands are appraised as taxing and require continued adjustment beyond routine processing. We distinguish this process from information overload, cognitive load, mental fatigue, and specific strategies of selective non-processing. We also outline an operational approach linking structural properties of informational input with appraisal, regulatory responses, behavioral and physiological outcomes, and recovery over time. The perspective is intended as a testable conceptual synthesis rather than a unified theory, and its value depends on demonstrating explanatory contribution beyond established accounts of cognitive demand and regulation.