Working memory performance impaired after exposure to acute social stress: The evidence comes from ERPs

•We explore acute social stress effects on working memory performance with ERPs.•Delayed response time was found under acute social stress.•Load effect on P3 vanished under acute stress in contrast to the control context. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we examined the time course of 39 healthy novice drivers during a blocked working memory task (numerical N-back) under acute social stress or control conditions, which were induced by the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST) or control procedure. Subjective measures were used to assess stress manipulation throughout the experiment. An elevated negative effect in response to a stress condition indicated a successful stress induction. The behavioral results showed that the stress group had a longer response time and larger differences in accuracy than the control group. On a neural level, the control group had larger P3 amplitude in the 1-back condition than in the 2-back condition; this load effect, however, disappeared in the stress group. These results revealed that acute social stress had a disruptive effect on both working memory behavioral performance and cognitive neural process. These findings provide us with a basis to understand the correlation between acute stress and cognitive processes of working memory at a cognitive neural level.