Multivariate Discrimination of Emotion-Specific Autonomic Nervous System Activity

The present study investigated autonomic nervous system (ANS) patterning during experimentally manipulated emotion. Film clips previously shown to induce amusement, anger, contentment, disgust, fear, and sadness, in addition to a neutral control, were presented to 34 college-aged subjects while electrodermal activity, blood pressure and electrocardiogram (ECG) were recorded as was self-reported affect. Mean and mean successive difference of inter-beat interval were derived from the ECG. Pattern classification analysis revealed emotion-specific patterning for all emotion conditions except disgust. Discriminant function analysis was used to describe the location of discrete emotions within a dimensional affective state space, for both self-report and ANS activity. Findings suggest traditional dimensional emotion models accurately describe the state space for self-reported emotion, but may require modification in order to accurately describe the state space for ANS activity during discrete emotions. Proposed modifications are consistent with the adoption of a discrete-dimensional hybrid model as well as current trends in emotion theory.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Department dc:contributor.department

Psychology

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Christie, Israel C.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Friedman, Bruce H.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Crawford, Helen J.
• Franchina, Joseph J.

• Emotion
• Autonomic Specificity
• Multivariate Pattern Classification

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-05172002-160205

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/32903