Individual differences in heartbeat discrimination.
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Adult↗
Biomedical subjects
S Goldband
Publications and source records attributed to S Goldband.
Oral imagery and autonomic arousal in social isolation.
Psychoanalytic theory suggests that the presence of others reduces anxiety in those with oral-dependent needs. Electrodermal activity of male subjects high and low on Rorschach oral-dependent responses was monitored in one of three conditions while the subject was in a soundproof chamber for 40 minutes: alone with no task; alone working on a clerical task; and together with a male confederate, both working independently on the clerical task. Oral-dependent subjects placed in the chamber with the confederate showed fewer electrodermal increase over time than orals sitting alone or nonorals either alone or with the confederate (p less than .001). On the clerical task there was a strong main effect of orality, with nonorals showing more accuracy than orals (p less than .03).
Anxiety↗
Empirical assessment of visceral self-perception: individual and sex differences in the acquisition of heartbeat discrimination.
This study had two aims: (a) to test precisely the degree to which subjects can learn to discriminate their own heartbeats and (b) to pursue preliminary data suggesting that males and females differ in their ability to learn such discriminations. A new methodology, based on the theory of signal detection, was employed to evaluate objectively and quantitatively the performance of nine male and nine female subjects. The results confirmed the validity of the new methodology for assessing heartbeat detection and also confirmed earlier observations that males are able to learn to detect their own heartbeats but females are not. The results are discussed with particular reference to implications for viscerally based theories of emotion.
Arousal↗
Stimulus specificity of physiological response to stress and the type A coronary-prone behavior pattern.
Two experiments were performed to determine the influence of stimulus specificity on differences in physiological response to stress of coronary-prone (Type A) and non-coronary-prone (Type B) individuals. In the first experiment, a reaction time task was presented to male undergraduates with and without stress relevant to the Type A behavior pattern. The physiological responses of Type A subjects were greater in the relevant stress compared to the neutral task condition, but the responses of Type B subjects were similar in the two conditions. In the second experiment, Type A and type B subjects performed a stressful task that was not theoretically relevant to the Type A behavior pattern. Physiological response elevations were found for both groups, but as predicted, there were no differences between Type A and Type B subjects. The results are discussed as support for the discriminant validity of the Type A construct and as additional evidence for the role of physiological response differences as mediators of the behavior-pattern-disease relationship.
Arousal↗