A study was performed on task-loaded and normal speech from nine speakers to determine whether there are any measurable effects on the excitation signal, primarily the shape of the glottal pulse. Inverse filtering of the original speech was used to recover the glottal pulse train. Measures included pitch, amplitude, rising slope, closing slope, and three factors derived from a beta function model of the glottal pulse. Results suggest there are measurable effects on the excitation signal in stressed speech. These effects are largely speaker dependent. Analysis of the measures suggest stress in the majority of speakers causes a significant variation in pitch, and either a narrowing of the glottal pulse independent of pitch or a significant shift in the pulse mass.