Emotional responsivity to nonveridical heart rate feedback as a function of anxiety

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the effects of nonveridical heart rate feedback and anxiety on electrodermal responses and verbal reports to emotionally laden stimuli. Forty-eight female subjects were divided into high and low anxious groups on the basis of their Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale scores and resting level electrodermal activity. All subjects viewed 10 autopsy slides while hearing continuous auditory tones supposedly representing their own heartbeats. Twenty-four subjects heard the tones increase in rate with slide onset. The other 24 subjects heard no change in rate with slide onset. The high resting autonomic activity group responded with significantly larger electrodermal responses to the heart rate feedback-slide combination than the low resting level autonomic activity group. The high autonomic activity group also reported that the slides were significantly more unpleasant than the low autonomic activity group, particularly those slides accompanied by an increase in heart rate feedback. Implications of these findings for a cognitive-visceral model of emotion are discussed.     

GSR as reflection of decision-making under conditions of delay

A total of 15 healthy individuals of both sexes, aged from 18 to 30 years, were studied. The subjects were presented a series of three audio signals in each of two conditions. Under condition A the subject made a fist immediately after the third signal if all the three sounds were identical; under condition B, a fist was made if at least one sound was different from the other two. The GSR was particularly pronounced when the decision to make or not to make a fist was made under conditions where action was delayed.