Abstract
This study assessed the nature of evoked cardiac components elicited during detection and aversion procedures. In the aversion procedure (AVR), tone intensity increased during the trial sequence, and the subject was instructed that he/she could stop the sequence if the intensity became uncomfortable. In the detection procedure (DET), the subject had to indicate during which of two observation intervals he/she had heard the tone. In this task, intensity decreased over the course of the experiment. A third condition (NOT), during which stimuli were not delivered, served as a baseline. Heart rate was sampled at three time periods (early, middle, and late) during the three conditions. The baseline condition produced no consistent cardiac response patterns. While the initial deceleratory and subsequent acceleratory components increased from early to late periods for DET, the AVR waveforms went from a small, initial deceleration to a wholly acceleratory response from early to late periods. These data provide further evidence that the initial, deceleratory portion of the cardiac waveform reflects “information intake,” while the subsequent, acceleratory component reflects information processing.
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The authors would like to thank: James Wilson, Jr., for aid with data collection and scoring, and Georgia Lenoil for her help with data scoring; James Hollenberg, for computer programs used in this study; David Lykken, who suggested we use the detection procedure and provided us with the details of that task; John Andreassi and Fred Rist, whose comments on an earlier version of this manuscript were most helpful; and Donald Ross, who provided us with invaluable statistical advice. This research was supported by USPHS Grant MH 19560 and by the Department of Mental Hygiene of the State of New York.
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Friedman, D., Tursky, B. & Erlenmeyer-Kimling, L. Evoked cardiac waveform components during aversion and detection procedures. Psychobiology 8, 497–502 (1980). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03326483
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03326483