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Stress‐induced cortisol secretion impairs detection performance in x‐ray baggage screening for hidden weapons by screening novices
Author(s) -
Thomas Livia,
Schwaninger Adrian,
Heimgartner Nadja,
Hedinger Patrik,
Hofer Franziska,
Ehlert Ulrike,
Wirtz Petra H.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/psyp.12229
Subject(s) - psychology , trier social stress test , nonstress test , stress (linguistics) , hydrocortisone , psychosocial , fight or flight response , developmental psychology , medicine , psychiatry , chemistry , heart rate , biochemistry , linguistics , philosophy , blood pressure , fetal heart rate , gene
Aviation security strongly depends on screeners' performance in the detection of threat objects in x‐ray images of passenger bags. We examined for the first time the effects of stress and stress‐induced cortisol increases on detection performance of hidden weapons in an x‐ray baggage screening task. We randomly assigned 48 participants either to a stress or a nonstress group. The stress group was exposed to a standardized psychosocial stress test ( TSST ). Before and after stress/nonstress, participants had to detect threat objects in a computer‐based object recognition test ( X ‐ray ORT ). We repeatedly measured salivary cortisol and X ‐ray ORT performance before and after stress/nonstress. Cortisol increases in reaction to psychosocial stress induction but not to nonstress independently impaired x‐ray detection performance. Our results suggest that stress‐induced cortisol increases at peak reactivity impair x‐ray screening performance.