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Heart Rate and Respiratory Responses as a Function of Task Difficulty: The Use of Discriminant Analysis in the Selection of Psychologically Sensitive Physiological Responses
Author(s) -
Walter Gary F.,
Porges Stephen W.
Publication year - 1976
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.1469-8986.1976.tb00882.x
Subject(s) - psychology , heart rate , discriminant function analysis , task (project management) , linear discriminant analysis , heart rate variability , respiratory rate , psychophysiology , audiology , neuroscience , statistics , blood pressure , medicine , mathematics , management , economics
The relationship between physiological response patterns.and task difficulty was investigated by evaluating heart rate and respiratory responses during a choice reaction lime tusk with three levels of task difficulty. The data fit a two‐component model or attention containing reactive and sustained responses. There were two reactive responses: An immediate deceleration which was independent of task manipulation; and a short latency response, monotonically paralleling task difficulty, which was characterized by acceleration and an increase in heart rate variability. The sustained component exhibited task dependent deceleration and u generalized reduction in heart rate variability and respiration amplitude variability. A stepwise discriminant analysis was performed on the task conditions using physiological responses to determine responses sensitive to task demands. Physiological response patterns were monotonically ordered as a function of task difficulty, suggesting that this technique may have advantages for determining physiological responses most sensitive to psychological manipulation.