The effect of stress on working memoryQuestionWhat is the effect of stress on working memory? Stress has been shown to influence working memory (Schoofs, Pabst, Brand, & Wolf, 2013). The purpose of this experiment is to determine whether stress has a positive or negative impact on working memory. Many people deal well with stress in their daily lives or succumb to the pressure. Although many studies have been done to examine the implications of stress on our physical well-being, there is little research on how stress specifically affects working memory. Lit ReviewStress is said to impair response inhibition and working memory. Mika, Mazur, Hoffman, Talboom, Bimonet-Nelson, Sanabria, and Conrad (2012) examined the effects of chronic restraint stress on response inhibition and working memory. Researchers hypothesize that stress reduces response inhibition capacity and impairs working memory. They measured response inhibition capacity with a response withholding task known as FMI, a fixed minimum interval reinforcement schedule. The researchers measured working memory using a radial arm water maze, RAWM. In this study, adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were trained on RAWM and then FMI. To study the effects of stress, rats were divided into restraint stress conditions or control conditions. The researchers manipulated the stress condition by placing the rats in the control condition in their natural cages and the rats in the restraint stress condition in a wire mesh restraint device. After administering chronic stress, rats were tested on FMI and RAWM. The results of the study supported the researchers' hypothesis; chronic stress actually impaired response inhibition... middle of article...... uh, individuals with working memory performed better when they used habitual steps than those with Individuals with lower WM generally follow. Under lower pressure conditions, the weaker individuals' working memory was, the more accurate they were using simpler steps (Beilock & DeCaro, 2007). Beilock and DeCaro (2007) explained their findings as the result that the availability of WM influences the way individuals approach mathematical problems, with the complexity of the task being performed and the level of pressure from their environment determining which skills succeed or fail . Hypothesis Previous research has supported the hypothesis that stress is related to impaired working memory. The higher the stress, the more working memory is impaired due to pressure-induced working memory consumption. This means that most of an individual's attention and effort is devoted to coping with the ever-present stressors in life..