In-task auditory performance-related feedback promotes cardiovascular markers of a challenge state during a pressurized task

Background and Objectives: Individuals evaluate the demands and resources associated with a pressurized situation, which leads to distinct patterns of cardiovascular responses. While it is accepted that cognitive evaluations are updated throughout a pressurized situation, to date, cardiovascular markers have only been recorded immediately before, or averaged across, these situations. Thus, this study examined the influence of in-task performance-related feedback on cardiovascular markers of challenge and threat to explore fluctuations in these markers. Methods and Design: Forty participants completed a pressurized visual search task while cardiovascular markers of challenge and threat were recorded. During the task, participants received either positive or negative feedback via distinct auditory tones to induce a challenge or threat state. Following task completion, cardiovascular markers were recorded during a recovery phase. Results: Participants’ cardiovascular responses changed across the experimental protocol. Specifically, while participants displayed a cardiovascular response more reflective of a challenge state following in-task performance-related feedback, participants exhibited a response more akin to a threat state later during the recovery phase. Conclusions: In-task auditory performance-related feedback promoted cardiovascular markers of a challenge state. These markers fluctuated over the experiment, suggesting that they, and presumably underlying demand and resource evaluations, are relatively dynamic in nature.