Patterns of Cardiovascular-Somatic-Respiratory Interactions in the Continuous Perceptual-Motor Task Paradigm

Abstract

This chapter summarizes a series of psychophysiological studies conducted in our laboratory over a number of years. This research has been primarily concerned with physiological correlates of extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors during task performance. Extrinsic factors have centered around task difficulty and threat of aversive stimulation during the performance of continuous perceptual-motor tasks. Intrinsic motivational factors of importance in our experiments have been related to individual differences in propensity to seriousmindedness and type A behavior. Because we have been interested in patterns of motivationally dependent task responses across a range of physiological systems, we have simultaneously measured cardiovascular, respiratory and neuromuscular parameters in our studies. Our findings indicate that intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors interact in specific ways under different conditions to produce physiological patterns of reactivity to continuous perceptual-motor tasks.