The present study addressed autonomic nervous system (ANS) patterning during experimentally manipulated emotion. Film clips previously shown to induce amusement, anger, contentment, disgust, fear and sadness, in addition to a neutral control film, were presented to 34 college-aged subjects while skin conductance, blood pressure and the electrocardiogram (ECG) were recorded, as was self-reported affect. Both mean of and mean successive difference of heart period were derived from the ECG. Pattern classification analyses revealed emotion-specific autonomic patterning for all emotion conditions except disgust; all emotion conditions exhibited significant patterning using self-report. Discriminant function analysis was used to describe the location of discrete emotions within dimensional affective space using both self-report and ANS variables. Findings suggest that the dimensions of valence and activation portray the structure of self-reported emotion, but that valence is more accurately described as approach–withdrawal when applied to autonomic responses during discrete emotions. The findings provide further support for the existence of emotion-specific ANS activity, and are consistent with a hybrid discrete–dimensional model of affective space.
Published: 2004-01-01
Autonomic specificity of discrete emotion and dimensions of affective space: a multivariate approach
Israel C Christie, Bruce H Friedman
Autonomic nervous system, Electrocardiogram, Emotions
- Item Type: journalArticle
- Publication Title: International Journal of Psychophysiology
- Volume: 51
- Pages: 143-153
- Series:
- Series Title:
- Series Text:
- Journal Abbreviation: International Journal of Psychophysiology
- DOI: /10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2003.08.002
- ISSN: 0167-8760
- Short Title: Autonomic specificity of discrete emotion and dimensions of affective space
- Library Catalog: ScienceDirect
