Study Of Some Physiological Indexes And Cardiac Autonomic Outflow Patterns Of Fear Emotion Elicited By Audio Material

Elicitation of the target emotion may be the most important component element in studies about emotion. In this study, we investigated some physiological indexes and cardiac autonomic outflow patterns of fear emotion elicited by audio material(terrible story). Electric skin resistance (ESR), respiration frequency (RF) and electrocardiogram (ECG) was recorded in 56 healthy volunteers during the listening of terrible story and neutral story. And resorts to adjective checklist to collect subjects' self-report of emotion,which is concerned to determinate whether target emotions are elicited successfully. Statistical analysis is very simple in this study, so it easy to be understood. There are many results about physiological indexes of fear emotion in previous study, and most of those studies arrived at heightened ESR, raised heart rate and RF, and decreased SDNN, but my study arrived at some opposite results, including decreased heart rate and RF. And the major cardiac autonomic outflow pattern of fear emotion in my study is co-inhibition pattern instead of traditional reciprocal pattern.The main results and conclusions are as follows: 1. The experimental materials used in this experiment successfully elicitated the target emotion. Both neutral story and terrible story elicitate certain level of satisfaction; comparison of the two conditions, the difference mainly on fear and tension, which reached significently different. So , the material in this study could eliciate targeted emotion successfully.2. Significant changes in physiological were induced. From physiological indexes, we can see decreased SDNN, RF , heart rate and raised TV, SC under fear emotion. Among those indexes, decreased RF and heart rate is contrast with piror study.3. Both LF and HF were decreased under horror story. Low frequency(LF) and high frequency(HF) of both two emotional state is positive correlation. And both the LF and HF of fear emotion is lower than neutral emotion, and the HF component decreased reach the significance level, which is different from previous study .4. Co-inhibition had accounted for the largest proportion. Cardiac autonomic outflow patterns of fear emotion elicited by audio material , co-inhibition pattern took the largest proportion, the next in order is co-activation pattern and traditional reciprocal pattern , which different from previous study . And subjects whose cardiac autonomic outflow patterns of fear emotion is co-inhibition pattern, have the most high proportion of high level fear. From this study, we presume co-inhibition pattern is the main pattern of fear emotion.