The Sing-a-Song Stress Test (SSST) was recently developed as an alternative to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) to investigate autonomic nervous system responses to social-evaluative stress. In the SSST, participants are suddenly cued to sing a song in the presence of confederates. However, the SSST is still quite long (~15 min) and the requirement for confederates makes it labor-intensive. The current study tested whether a shorter (~6.5 min), single-experimenter, version of the SSST can still reliably elicit subjective and physiological stress reactivity. Our sample consisted of 87 healthy young adult participants (age range: 18-35 years). During the short SSST and a speeded reaction time task, in which aversive loud tones were to be avoided (TA), we measured heart period (HP), sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity using pre-ejection-period (PEP), skin conductance level (SCL), and non-specific skin conductance responses (ns.SCR), and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity using respiratory-sinus-arrhythmia (RSA) and the root-mean-square of successive differences (RMSSD). The short SSST induced significant decreases in positive affect and increases in negative affect. MANOVAs on the clusters of SNS and PNS variables showed that the short SSST elicited significant HP (-118.46 ms), PEP (-7.76 ms), SCL (+4.85 μS), ns.SCR (+8.42 peaks/min) and RMSSD (-14.67) reactivity. Affective, SNS, and PNS reactivity to the new SSST social-evaluative stress task were of comparable magnitude to that evoked by the TA mental stressor. We conclude that the short SSST is a valid and cost-effective task for large scaled studies to induce social-evaluative stress to a sufficient degree to evoke measurable changes in PNS and SNS activity and affective state.

中文翻译：

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简短的 Sing-a-Song 压力测试：对社会评价压力引起的自主反应的实用且有效的测试

唱歌压力测试 (SSST) 最近被开发作为特里尔社会压力测试 (TSST) 的替代方案，以研究自主神经系统对社会评估压力的反应。在 SSST 中，参与者突然被提示在同盟者在场的情况下唱歌。然而，SSST 仍然很长（约 15 分钟）并且对同盟的要求使其成为劳动密集型的。当前的研究测试了更短（约 6.5 分钟）的单实验者版本的 SSST 是否仍能可靠地引发主观和生理应激反应。我们的样本包括 87 名健康的年轻成人参与者（年龄范围：18-35 岁）。在短暂的 SSST 和加速反应时间任务中，要避免厌恶的响亮音调 (TA)，我们测量了心脏周期 (HP)，使用射血前期 (PEP)、皮肤电导水平 (SCL) 和非特异性皮肤电导反应 (ns.SCR) 的交感神经系统 (SNS) 活动，以及使用呼吸窦的副交感神经系统 (PNS) 活动心律失常 (RSA) 和连续差的均方根 (RMSSD)。短暂的 SSST 导致积极情绪的显着下降和消极情绪的增加。SNS 和 PNS 变量集群上的 MANOVA 表明，短 SSST 引起了显着的 HP (-118.46 ms)、PEP (-7.76 ms)、SCL (+4.85 μS)、ns.SCR (+8.42 peaks/min) 和 RMSSD ( -14.67) 反应性。对新 SSST 社会评估压力任务的情感、SNS 和 PNS 反应与 TA 精神压力源引起的反应程度相当。