A study of physiological response during emotional imaging

Autonomic Nervous System Activity During Positive Emotions: A Meta-Analytic Review

Autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity is a fundamental component of emotional responding. It is not clear, however, whether positive emotional states are associated with differential ANS reactivity. To address this issue, we conducted a meta-analytic review of 120 articles (686 effect sizes, total N = 6,546), measuring ANS activity during 11 elicited positive emotions, namely amusement, attachment love, awe, contentment, craving, excitement, gratitude, joy, nurturant love, pride, and sexual desire. We identified a widely dispersed collection of studies. Univariate results indicated that positive emotions produce no or weak and highly variable increases in ANS reactivity. However, the limitations of work to date – which we discuss – mean that our conclusions should be treated as empirically grounded hypotheses that future research should validate.

Experimental Methods for Inducing Basic Emotions: A Qualitative Review

Experimental emotion inductions provide the strongest causal evidence of the effects of emotions on psychological and physiological outcomes. In the present qualitative review, we evaluated five common experimental emotion induction techniques: visual stimuli, music, autobiographical recall, situational procedures, and imagery. For each technique, we discuss the extent to which they induce six basic emotions: anger, disgust, surprise, happiness, fear, and sadness. For each emotion, we discuss the relative influences of the induction methods on subjective emotional experience and physiological responses (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure). Based on the literature reviewed, we make emotion-specific recommendations for induction methods to use in experiments.

Emergent Ghosts of the Emotion Machine

Competing perspectives on the nature of emotion are illustrated with latent and emergent variable models. Latent variable models draw from classical test theory, assuming that the measured indicators of emotion covary by virtue of some common executive, organizing neural circuit or network in the brain. By contrast, emergent variable models draw from a theory-driven, operational definition tradition, positing that emotions do not cause, but rather are caused by, the measured indicators of emotion, assuming no executive neural circuit or network, and requiring no covariation among indicators. I suggest that the emergent variable model may be more compatible with the extant literature on the nature of emotion, especially in the age of affective neuroscience.

Autonomic nervous system activity in emotion: a review

Autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity is viewed as a major component of the emotion response in many recent theories of emotion. Positions on the degree of specificity of ANS activation in emotion, however, greatly diverge, ranging from undifferentiated arousal, over acknowledgment of strong response idiosyncrasies, to highly specific predictions of autonomic response patterns for certain emotions. A review of 134 publications that report experimental investigations of emotional effects on peripheral physiological responding in healthy individuals suggests considerable ANS response specificity in emotion when considering subtypes of distinct emotions. The importance of sound terminology of investigated affective states as well as of choice of physiological measures in assessing ANS reactivity is discussed.

Does positive affect influence health?

This review highlights consistent patterns in the literature associating positive affect (PA) and physical health. However, it also raises serious conceptual and methodological reservations. Evidence suggests an association of trait PA and lower morbidity and of state and trait PA and decreased symptoms and pain. Trait PA is also associated with increased longevity among older community-dwelling individuals. The literature on PA and surviving serious illness is inconsistent. Experimentally inducing intense bouts of activated state PA triggers short-term rises in physiological arousal and associated (potentially harmful) effects on immune, cardiovascular, and pulmonary function. However, arousing effects of state PA are not generally found in naturalistic ambulatory studies in which bouts of PA are typically less intense and often associated with health protective responses. A theoretical framework to guide further study is proposed.

Interest value, meaningfulness, and familiarity of words: relations with other word properties

Evaluation of different properties of words and the relations among them is of value for understanding languages and as a basis for research. In the present study we investigated relations among interest value, familiarity, and meaningfulness of words. We also investigated the relations of these properties with imagery, concreteness, emotionality, frequency, date of entry into the language, word length, and amplitude of skin conductance response. A total of 85 university students received a list of 25 word pairs, each pair comprised of a concrete and an abstract noun with related meanings, e.g., "friend" and "friendship," and rated the interest value, familiarity, and meaningfulness of each word. Familiarity correlated significantly with meaningfulness and interest value.

Granting forgiveness or harboring grudges: implications for emotion, physiology, and health

Interpersonal offenses frequently mar relationships. Theorists have argued that the responses victims adopt toward their offenders have ramifications not only for their cognition, but also for their emotion, physiology, and health. This study examined the immediate emotional and physiological effects that occurred when participants (35 females, 36 males) rehearsed hurtful memories and nursed grudges (i.e., were unforgiving) compared with when they cultivated empathic perspective taking and imagined granting forgiveness (i.e., were forgiving) toward real-life offenders. Unforgiving thoughts prompted more aversive emotion, and significantly higher corrugator (brow) electromyogram (EMG), skin conductance, heart rate, and blood pressure changes from baseline. The EMG, skin conductance, and heart rate effects persisted after imagery into the recovery periods. Forgiving thoughts prompted greater perceived control and comparatively lower physiological stress responses. The results dovetail with the psychophysiology literature and suggest possible mechanisms through which chronic unforgiving responses may erode health whereas forgiving responses may enhance it.

Relationship between properties of words and elicitation of skin conductance response

We investigated the association of subject-rated imagery, subject-rated concreteness, subject-rated emotionality, frequency, date of entry into the language, and word length with emotional imagery as measured by the skin conductance response elicited by that word. 50 words in a list of 25 word-pairs were rated by 96 university students; then their skin conductance response of each word was measured for each word. In each pair, one word was concrete and one was abstract but with related meaning, e.g., adolescent and adolescence. Stepwise multiple regression indicated that 30% of variance in the later skin conductance response was explained by imagery and subject-rated emotionality. Imagery alone explained 24% of variance.

Emotionality of words as related to vividness of imagery and concreteness

We investigated the association of the imagery and concreteness of words on their emotionality. Emotionality was evaluated on the basis of skin conductance. A total of 61 subjects (all university students) rated the vividness of imagery and concreteness of the words in a list of 25 word pairs. Each pair was comprised of one abstract word and one concrete word with a related meaning, e.g., "friendship" and "friend," thereby controlling meaning. The skin-conductance response of each word was measured subsequently from these same subjects. Our results show that both imagery and concreteness were significantly related to emotionality.