Simultaneous measurement of electrodermal activity components correlated with age-related differences.

Abstract

Electrodermal activity (EDA) measurements are influenced by various factors. Age-related psychological and physiological changes may be considered as one of the possible factors which may influence EDA measurements. In order to properly investigate the effects of such factors on EDA, techniques of precisely and simultaneously recording more than one EDA parameter are recommended. This study aims to explore the impact of age-related differences on EDA components through employing a new measuring technique, which is composed of a small front-end electronic box, DAQ card, and a laptop running LabVIEW software. It is dependent on the simultaneous recording of three EDA parameters: skin conductance (SC), skin potential (SP), and skin susceptance (SS) at the same skin site. EDA components as results of breathing, mathematical tasks, and image stimuli were recorded from 60 healthy participants simultaneously at the same skin site. They were categorized by age into young adults (ages 18-25), middle-aged adults (ages 30-40), and old adults (ages 50-70) years. It was found that skin potential responses (SPRs), and skin conductance level (SCL) (p < 0.001), were significantly decreased due to aging, but changes in other EDA parameters were nonsignificant (p > 0.05). Moreover, both tonic and phasic SS were the least affected and found to be more robust than SC and SP with respect to aging. The study suggests that it is important to take age into account in research studies where the mean aim of the study is to compare EDA parameters; however, in the meantime, the results from our small number and specific study population cannot be generalized to clinical applications.