[Psychophysiologic research].

Abstract

Psychophysiology is characterized as an experimental discipline aimed at the description of behavior which makes use of physiological analytical principles in order to formulate causation mechanisms. Psychophysiology expands behavioral description and focuses upon mediating mechanisms and intervening variables; it studies "whole organisms" under specified and controlled conditions permitting simultaneous evaluation of subjective experience and physiological data using techniques that disrupt minimally the process under study and not disturbing the subject. It is emphasized that psychophysiology is primarily a descriptive endeavour, its position being intermediate between basic neurobiology and social psychology. It may generate "translation rules" between different levels of behavioral analysis. A brief introduction to electrophysiological techniques is presented along with selected theoretical issues. Among these, a discussion of "intensity" and "direction" aspects of behavior is presented, emphasizing their interrelatedness and the fact that a "cerebral" and a "peripheral" psychophysiology could be distinguished on the basis of the "effector systems" explored and the purpose of the investigation. The contributions of psychophysiology to diagnosis, prognosis and treatment are discussed within the framework of different theoretical contexts.