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THE USE OF HEART RATE FOR THE STUDY OF HABITUATION IN THE NEONATE
Author(s) -
Stratton Peter M.
Publication year - 1970
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/j.1469-8986.1970.tb02275.x
Subject(s) - habituation , psychology , heart rate , stimulus (psychology) , generality , audiology , stimulation , consistency (knowledge bases) , developmental psychology , orienting response , logarithm , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , blood pressure , medicine , mathematics , psychotherapist , mathematical analysis , geometry
The heart rate (HR), being readily affected by many forms of stimulation, is likely to be a particularly useful index of neonatal response. However measures of HR change have been applied without proper evaluation and without being tested against controls, with consequent loss of generality of findings. A procedure for choosing response measures, involving minimal assumptions about the experimental situation, is described. Applied to the habituation of neonates to medium intensity auditory stimuli, this procedure indicated an increase in HR as the most useful response characteristic. Habituation of the acceleratory response was found to take the form of a logarithmic (not exponential) function of trial number. Assumptions underlying the usual methods of correction for initial values are examined and most of them are shown to have been violated in the present data. Further, application of various corrections failed to improve the consistency of measures of habituation. Multiple regression analysis of 14 measures of the acceleratory response showed that the increase in rate during the first 6 set following stimulus onset was the most consistent indicator of habituation. Addition of further measures did not contribute significantly to the relationship.