Abstract
Most studies on physiological effects of emotion-inducing images and sounds examine stimulus locked variables reflecting a state of at most a few seconds. We here aimed to induce longer lasting emotional states using blocks of repetitive visual, auditory, and bimodal stimuli corresponding to specific valence and arousal levels. The duration of these blocks enabled us to reliably measure heart rate variability as a possible indicator of arousal. In addition, heart rate and skin conductance were determined without taking stimulus timing into account. Heart rate was higher for pleasant and low arousal stimuli compared to unpleasant and high arousal stimuli. Heart rate variability and skin conductance increased with arousal. Effects of valence and arousal on cardiovascular measures habituated or remained the same over 2-min intervals whereas the arousal effect on skin conductance increased. We did not find any effect of stimulus modality. Our results indicate that blocks of images and sounds of specific valence and arousal levels consistently influence different physiological parameters. These parameters need not be stimulus locked. We found no evidence for differences in emotion induction between visual and auditory stimuli, nor did we find bimodal stimuli to be more potent than unimodal stimuli. The latter could be (partly) due to the fact that our bimodal stimuli were not optimally congruent.
Highlights
Identifying an individual’s emotions through physiological correlates is desirable in a wide range of situations
Effects of arousal were found on the physiological measures as described in section Effects of Modality, Valence and Arousal on Physiological Variables and Arousal and Valence Effects Over Time
The positive effect of arousal on skin conductance in our study suggests that our stimuli, despite the decrease in heart rate and the increase in heart rate variability, induced different arousal levels as intended
Summary
Identifying an individual’s emotions through (neuro) physiological correlates is desirable in a wide range of situations. Even though studies on autonomic responses to emotion reported heterogeneous results (Cacioppo et al, 2000; Kreibig, 2010), in an extensive review of the literature Kreibig (2010) makes the case that recordings from the autonomic nervous system can inform us about specific experienced emotions. A number of other models at varying conceptual levels have been proposed to clarify the link between emotion and physiological responses (see for a comprehensive review Kreibig, 2011). All of these models view emotions as the instigator of the physiological changes that in turn adapt the organism to (planned) action
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