An experimental paradigm to manipulate physiological arousal using consecutive successes

This study presents an experimental paradigm using the concept of consecutive successes to examine how performance changes under psychological pressure. In Experiment 1 (<i>N</i> = 15), participants performed a force exertion task aiming for 10 consecutive successes, while heart rate and force error were recorded as measures of arousal and task accuracy. Heart rate increased exponentially with the number of consecutive successes, exceeding levels reported in previous studies. This demonstrates that the manipulation induced strong arousal often linked to pressure. Contrary to the expected inverted U-shaped relationship between pressure and performance, performance improved linearly. In Experiment 2 (<i>N</i> = 15), we changed the goal to 100 total successes to rule out order effects. The changes in heart rate and performance associated with consecutive successes were absent. This approach offers an efficient and scalable method to induce pressure-like conditions in laboratory settings, providing a useful tool for studying how arousal levels influence performance.