Date of Award
May 2020
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Advisor(s)
Rachel Razza
Keywords
anxiety, arousal, attention, language, stress
Subject Categories
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
Communicating under stress can have many effects on our bodies and minds, as well as the way that we produce language. The current study employed a pseudorandomized group design to compare individuals’ perceived anxiety, physiological arousal, physiological cognitive attention, and language production during stressful communication and non-stressful communication. Results indicated that the stressful communication protocol did not seem to affect individuals’ self-reported anxiety, as there were no differences between the high stress and low stress groups. No between-group differences were found in physiological arousal; however, results demonstrated that the high stress group experienced an increase in physiological arousal while speaking. No between-group or within-group differences were found physiological high vigilant attention. Results did not indicate that gross language output was affected by stressful communication, but there was evidence that stressful communication did have an adverse impact on syntactic complexity of language. However, there may also have been a task effect, as participants in the low stress group were more prepared for the task than the high stress group. This study provides evidence that stressful communication may affect physiological arousal and syntactic complexity of language.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Mascellino, Monica, "Speaking under Stress: Effects on Language Production, Perceived Anxiety, Physiological Arousal, and Cognitive Attention" (2020). Theses - ALL. 401.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/401
