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Effects of Social Stress on Direct and Inferential Learning

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 7, 2026, 3:00 – 5:00 pm PST, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Yuju Hong¹ (yujuhong@uwm.edu), Christine Larson¹, Caitlin Bowman¹; ¹University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

The ability to learn and integrate connected pieces of information to generate novel inferences is important for building deep, conceptual knowledge. Prior research has explored how acute stress impacts memory, but not many studies have explored how prolonged social stress affects inferential learning. To examine the effects of stress on inference, this research study utilized the Paired Associate Inference paradigm and the Trier Social Stress Task. Participants were randomly assigned to either control (n = 28) or stress (n = 28) group. Those in the stress group were told at the beginning of the session that they will present a class topic at the end of the session. Those in the control group were told that they will engage in a non-graded writing task at the end of the session. After the stress induction, participants completed a memory task where they learned overlapping pairs of images (e.g., apple-trumpet and trumpet-jacket) and were tested on direct paired images and the ability to make indirect connections (apple-jacket). We found higher levels of subjective stress and lower inference performance in the stress group compared to the control group. Participants also completed a retention test around 24 hours after the first session, and we saw a trending detrimental effect of stress on inference learning, which became more detrimental when controlling the accuracy of direct learning. In conclusion, stress negatively affects inferential ability more than it affects direct learning.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic