Premium
Alternate Cardiovascular Baseline Assessment Techniques: Vanilla or Resting Baseline
Author(s) -
Jennings J. Richard,
Kamarck Thomas,
Stewart Christopher,
Eddy Michael,
Johnson Paul
Publication year - 1992
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.1469-8986.1992.tb02052.x
Subject(s) - baseline (sea) , generalizability theory , multiple baseline design , replication (statistics) , psychology , task (project management) , stability (learning theory) , audiology , statistics , computer science , medicine , developmental psychology , machine learning , mathematics , psychiatry , oceanography , intervention (counseling) , management , economics , geology
The accurate evaluation of cardiovascular reactions to psychological challenge requires stable baselines against which change can be evaluated. When more than one challenge is employed, the recovery of this baseline becomes important in order to avoid carryover effects. Resting periods, even those of 20 min or more, do not guarantee baseline stability. We compared a 20‐min resting condition and a new form of baseline condition in 48 college men using video tasks as the psychological challenges. The new form was a minimally demanding color detection task, termed the “vanilla”baseline condition. A 10‐min version and a 20‐min version of this condition were tested. Comparisons to 10‐min resting baselines were made using our prior work and values from the literature. Vanilla baseline conditions were shown to be equal to or better than resting baseline conditions using criteria of between‐ and within‐baseline stability, amplitude and significance of responsivity, and generalizability between sessions on separate days. Ten‐minute resting baselines also showed acceptable stability, questioning the value of lengthy baselines. The good performance of the 10‐min vanilla baseline in initial and replication samples supported its utility for estimating baselines for many purposes.