Understanding Stress: A Web Interface for Mental Arithmetic Tasks in a Trier Social Stress Test

TL;DR

Participants' HR increased during the Mental Arithmetic Task phase compared to baseline and resting stages, indicating that stress is reflected in HR.

Abstract

Stress is a dynamic process that reflects the responses of the brain. Traditional methods for measuring stress are often time-consuming and susceptible to recall bias. To address this, we investigated changes in heart rate (HR) during the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Our study incorporated varying levels of complexity in mental arithmetic problems. Participants' HR increased during the Mental Arithmetic Task phase compared to baseline and resting stages, indicating that stress is reflected in HR.

Figures (3)

• Figure 1: Activity sequence of the designed study
• Figure 2: The web interface of the main working area at different MAT difficulty levels
• Figure 3: Heart Rate (HR) in baseline, resting, and each level of quiz.