Stress and physiological, behavioral and performance patterns of children under varied air ion levels

Abstract

The possibility that individual differences in reactivity to stressors are a major factor underlying discordant results reported for air ion studies prompted an investigation of response patterns in school children under both normal indoor air ion levels and moderately increased negative air ion levels (4000±500/cm3). It was hypothesized that the impact of stressors is reduced with high negative air ionization, and that resultant changes in stress effects would be differentially exhibited according to the children's normal degree of stimulus reactivity. A counter-balanced, replicative, withinssubject design was selected, and the subjects were 12 environmentally sensitive, 1st–4th grade school children. In addition to monitoring stress effects on activity level, attention span, concentration to task and conceptual performance, measures were also made of urinary 5-hydroxyindole acetic acid levels and skin resistance response (SRR) to determine if changes extended to the physiological state. The cold water test was used to add physical stress and enable calculations of Lacey's autonomic lability scores (ALS) as indicators of individual reactivity. The results show main effects for air ions on both physiological parameters, with 48% less change in %SRR (P<0.01) and 46% less change in urinary 5-HIAA levels (P<0.055) during negative air ions, indicating increased stress tolerance. Strong interactive effects for ALS x air ion condition appeared, with high and low ALS children reacting oppositely to negative air ions in measures of skin resistance level (P<0.01), wrist activity (P<0.01) and digit span backwards (P<0.004). Thus individual differences in autonomic reactivity and the presence or absence of stressors appear as critical elements for internal validity, and in preventing consequent skewed results from obscuring progress in air ion research.