An Exploratory Study into How the Application of Neurosciences can Assist in Understanding the Decision-Making Process Under Stress

Many decisions need to be made under stress, and several decision scenarios themselves trigger stress reactions. Thus, not only on an emotional level but also on a performance one, decision-making and stress are inextricably linked. The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze the connection between experimental stimuli and physiological reactions to understand the role that stress plays in an individual’s decision-making capacity. The review covers research that looked at decision-making under stress and focuses on research that looked at the impact of acutely generated stress on decision-making assessing both performance and stress responses. To address these variables, this research proposes a new stress measurement strategy based on decision-making problems under stressor stimuli while using wearable non-invasive biosensors. The participants were divided into control and experimental groups and conducted throughout decision-making problems and translating them into stress estimations. This work considered two real-time physiological monitoring (EDA and FEA) modalities to analyze the connection between experimental stimuli and physiological reactions to understand the role that stress plays in an individual’s decision-making capacity. The results indicate a significant increase in arousal, emotional changes, and engagement in the stress group when compared to the control group. Furthermore, our study’s findings also provide some validity to the general concept that adult individuals who are exposed to acute stress modify their decision-making criteria. In conclusion, the research demonstrates that active monitoring of subject physiologic reactions, when submitted to different stimuli, can deepen our understanding of the decision-making process under stress.