Frequency Of Nonspecific Responses Research Articles

Electrodermal activity, hormonal levels and subjective experience during the menstrual cycle

Changes in electrodermal activity and subjective experience were studied during the menstrual cycle. Sixty-two women, grouped into menstrual, follicular, ovulatory, luteal and premenstrual phases, were presented with 15, 4-s, 80-dB, 1000-Hz tones. Psychological states and psychosomatic symptoms were tested with Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and a self-report questionnaire. Two estimation procedures of the hormonal phases were used: one based on the onset of menses and cycle length, and another on the basal body temperature. Subjects were grouped into low or high levels of luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone and progesterone. There were significant increases in nonspecific response frequency, skin conductance response magnitude, skin conductance level, and a decrease in habituation rate at the ovulatory phase in comparison with luteal and premenstrual phases. No changes between the cycle phases were found in subjective experience. High follicle-stimulating hormone levels were associated with slower habituation rates and low trait-anxiety. The relationship between arousal changes and subjective experience in menstrual cycle is discussed.

Electrodermal habituation speed and visual monitoring performance.

ABSTRACTPrevious research has suggested that speed of habituation of the electrodermal orienting response is related to auditory vigilance performance. The present study investigated the relationship between habituation speed, nonspecific response frequency, and detection performance in a complex visual monitoring task. Two levels of task difficulty were employed. In the visual monitoring task, correct detections declined across blocks, and fewer signals were detected in the difficult task condition. Slow habituators detected more signals than fast habituators, but NSR‐frequency was not significantly related to the number of correct detections. The implications of these findings for different models of the relationship between habituation speed and vigilance performance are discussed.

Extraversion and electrodermal activity: arousability and the inverted-U

The Eysenck hypothesis that extraverts are less aroused or more inhibited than introverts has been subjected to a number of tests in the psychophysiological literature. Research to date suggests the need to clearly differentiate between tests of overall group differences in arousal or inhibition and studies of the differential reactions of the two groups to arousal manipulations. Psychophysiological studies of overall arousal differences in our laboratories and elsewhere have yielded somewhat inconsistent results for SCL, nonspecific response frequency, trials-to-criterion habituation and initial response amplitude, though dishabituation results are consistent with the expectation of higher amplitudes in introverts. Far more consistent are findings testing the inverted-U hypothesis, which suggests that introverts reach a point of optimal arousal at lower levels of stimulus input than do extraverts and hence should show earlier asymptotes and decrements in arousal measures. Using stimulus intensity and caffeine to manipulate arousal, we have found supportive results for SCL and several phasic measures, including the initial, test, and dishabituation responses. Overall, findings suggest that the two personality groups differ more clearly in arousability than in overall arousal level and that this difference is most consistent when conditions induce a rapid breakdown of inhibition and increase in arousal. Further research is needed to better understand the conditional relationship of extraversion to arousability, and arousal-manipulation paradigms would appear to be a fruitful initial approach to carrying out the needed research.

Effects of electrodermal lability and stimulus significance on electrodermal response amplitude to stimulus change.

ABSTRACTThe effects of electrodermal lability and stimulus significance on the amplitude of the skin conductance response (SCR) component of the orienting response (OR) to stimulus change were examined. Subjects were pre‐selected in terms of the frequency of nonspecific responses (NSRs) displayed during a period of no stimulation. In Experiment 1 (N = 56), high and low NSR male subjects received 12 presentations of a 5‐sec, 1000 Hz tone followed by a test trial on which tone frequency was 500 Hz. Half of the subjects in each NSR group were required to perform a reaction time (RT) response to stimulus offset. Although high NSR groups and RT groups displayed larger test‐trial responses than low NSR and no‐RT groups respectively, stimulus change alone was sufficient to produce an increase in SCR amplitude. In Experiment 2 (N = 40), high and low NSR male subjects received 12 visually‐presented female names, and on trial 13, half the subjects in each NSR group received their own name, while the other half received a neutral male name. High NSR groups and own‐name groups displayed larger test‐trial responses than low NSR groups and neutral‐name groups respectively. However, stimulus change alone was sufficient to produce an increase in SCR amplitude in the high NSR group. The results are interpreted as indicating that stimulus change alone is sufficient to produce an increase in OR amplitude, and that the relationship between stimulus change and stimulus significance is additive rather than multiplicative.

Differential skin conductance condition as a function of interstimulus interval

Three groups of Ss were given differential skin conductance classical conditioning trials at interstimulus intervals of.5, 3.5, and 6.7 sec. First-interval response performance was superior at the 3.5-sec ISI and second-interval response performance was superior at the 6.7-sec ISI. There appears, therefore, to be no single ISI function in SCR conditioning. In contrast to what happens with single-cue training, the conditional likelihood of a second-interval response was greater following the presence rather than the absence of a first-interval response. There was no evidence that the CS— acquired relative inhibitory properties, but the level of second-interval responding to CS CS— was approximately that of nonspecific response frequency and amplitude. This means that differential second-interval responding is almost exclusively a function of increased response levels to CS+.

Differential SCR conditioning with two control baselines: random signal and signal absent.

ABSTRACTThirty‐six Ss, informed about the contingencies, were given differential SCR training with 3 different signals: CS+, CS−, and a signal which was random with respect to UCS occurrence. UCSs occurred randomly between trials and during random signal trials, were correlated with CS+ presence, and were absent during CS−. Employing nonspecific response frequency and amplitude, as well as responding during random signal trials, as baselines for comparison, evidence for both inhibitory and excitatory influences was obtained. The pattern of these influences was such as to question the proposition that a CS+ acquires general excitatory properties and a CS− acquires general inhibitory properties.

Electrodermal and heart rate orienting reactions in chronic schizophrenia

Skin resistance was recorded continuously from 52 male chronic schizophrenic patients and 20 normal males in two sessions in which either 40 visual or 40 auditory stimuli were presented at half minute intervals. Heart rate was continuously recorded in 31 patients and all controls. The patients had a higher level of arousal as indicated by a higher mean conductance level, greater number of non-specific GSRs and higher mean heart rate in one of the sessions. The most striking finding with regard to specific (orienting) electrodermal responses was their slow habituation in the schizophrenic group. This was characterized by an erratic ‘off-and-on’ pattern of responding by individual schizophrenics. Amplitudes of specific GSRs and heart rate responses were larger in the schizophrenic group. Despite the greater responsivity to the stimuli of the schizophrenics, the ratio of specific to non-specific response frequency was greater in the controls. The results are interpreted as supporting the generalization that the weaker the stimuli the greater is the autonomic responsivity of schizophrenics with respect to that of normal subjects. Several mechanisms are proposed to account for the results based on the assumptions of high arousal and fluctuating attention in the schizophrenic subjects.

Autonomic lability and neuroticism

The Eysenck hypothesis that extraverts are less aroused or more inhibited than introverts has been subjected to a number of tests in the psychophysiological literature. Research to date suggests the need to clearly differentiate between tests of overall group differences in arousal or inhibition and studies of the differential reactions of the two groups to arousal manipulations. Psychophysiological studies of overall arousal differences in our laboratories and elsewhere have yielded somewhat inconsistent results for SCL, nonspecific response frequency, trials-to-criterion habituation and initial response amplitude, though dishabituation results are consistent with the expectation of higher amplitudes in introverts. Far more consistent are findings testing the inverted-U hypothesis, which suggests that introverts reach a point of optimal arousal at lower levels of stimulus input than do extraverts and hence should show earlier asymptotes and decrements in arousal measures. Using stimulus intensity and caffeine to manipulate arousal, we have found supportive results for SCL and several phasic measures, including the initial, test, and dishabituation responses. Overall, findings suggest that the two personality groups differ more clearly in arousability than in overall arousal level and that this difference is most consistent when conditions induce a rapid breakdown of inhibition and increase in arousal. Further research is needed to better understand the conditional relationship of extraversion to arousability, and arousal-manipulation paradigms would appear to be a fruitful initial approach to carrying out the needed research.