Conjoint Effect of Physical Stress and Noise Stress on Information Processing Performance and Cardiac Response

The conjoint effect of physical stress, induced by requiring subjects to run a treadmill, and 90 dB white noise stress was evaluated on information processing performance using a delayed digit recall subsidiary task measure and cardiac response. As anticipated, physical stress significantly raised heart rate, and noise stress significantly degraded information processing ability. The experiment failed to demonstrate a linearly additive relationship between noise and physical stress on either cardiac response or information processing performance.