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Selective attention and response inhibition alter phase‐dependent cardiac slowing
Author(s) -
Veen Frederik M.,
Molen Maurits W.,
Jennings J. Richard
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/1469-8986.3860896
Subject(s) - stimulus (psychology) , psychology , audiology , heart rate , response inhibition , anticipation (artificial intelligence) , developmental psychology , neuroscience , cognitive psychology , cognition , medicine , artificial intelligence , computer science , blood pressure
This study examined the effects of visual selective attention and stimulus discriminability on phasic heart rate changes. Grating stimuli consisting of four vertical bars were presented left or right from fixation. Participants attended to one side of the screen and responded with a button press to attended target stimuli that were defined by shorter middle bars. Stimulus discriminability was manipulated by increasing the length of the middle bars of targets. To examine the time course of response inhibition, participants had to respond to auditory probe stimuli that were presented occasionally and unpredictably at varying intervals following the visual stimulus. Responses to targets and probes following attended nontargets were slower in the difficult condition. Heart rate slowed in anticipation of a target and accelerated back to baseline afterwards. Phase‐dependent cardiac slowing was larger for attended nontargets compared to unattended nontargets and was more pronounced in the difficult condition. These findings were interpreted vis‐à‐vis inhibition accounts of phase‐dependent cardiac slowing.