Executive function (EF) is critical to everyday life, but it can be undermined by adverse psychological states like stress and negative affect. For example, inadequate time to perform a task is a common stressor that can disrupt EF. Although the impact of actual time pressure on EF has been established, little is known about how self-generated, perceived time pressure (PTP) affects EF in the absence of objective time limits. We chose Eriksen's Flanker task as an index of cognitive inhibition, a key component of EF, and we varied the interval between successive trials, the inter-trial interval (ITI), to proxy PTP. This manipulation strongly impacted task performance: shrinking the ITI to increase PTP diminished cognitive inhibition and increased both stress and negative affect. Subsequently lengthening the ITI to decrease PTP reversed nearly all of these effects, except stress, which persisted. Multilevel linear regression modeling revealed that ITI and stress predicted inhibition, and exploratory mediation modeling suggested that stress mediates the relationship between ITI and inhibition. These findings validate perceived time pressure as an empirical stressor and demonstrate EF's sensitivity to changes in PTP.

执行功能 (EF) 对日常生活至关重要，但它可能会受到压力和负面影响等不良心理状态的破坏。例如，执行任务的时间不足是可能破坏 EF 的常见压力源。尽管已经确定了实际时间压力对 EF 的影响，但在没有客观时间限制的情况下，自我产生的感知时间压力 (PTP) 如何影响 EF 知之甚少。我们选择 Eriksen 的 Flanker 任务作为认知抑制的指标，这是 EF 的一个关键组成部分，我们改变了连续试验之间的间隔，即试验间间隔 (ITI)，以代理 PTP。这种操作强烈影响了任务表现：缩小 ITI 以增加 PTP 减少了认知抑制并增加了压力和负面影响。随后延长 ITI 以降低 PTP 几乎扭转了所有这些影响，除了持续存在的压力。多级线性回归模型显示 ITI 和压力预测抑制，探索性中介模型表明压力介导 ITI 和抑制之间的关系。这些发现验证了感知时间压力是一种经验压力源，并证明了 EF 对 PTP 变化的敏感性。