| Abstract: | The present experiment examined 11 male adolescents for relationships between the autonomic measures of heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC) and three rates of finger tapping, a) subject resting, b) DRL.5 sec, and c) FR5, as a measure of behavioral arousal. At each level of behavioral arousal, minimum, mean, and maximum HR were analyzed. Mean and maximum HR increased only at high arousal, while minimum HR increased with each increase in behavioral arousal. SC was higher during tapping than resting, but was uninfluenced by rate of tapping. The potential value of the maximum and minimum HR and SC measures as tools for inferring the role of parasympathetic versus sympathetic mechanisms in autonomic arousal was discussed. This paradigm provides a simple, nonaversive method for examining autonomic and behavioral arousal. |
