Abstract
In a fixed-foreperiod reaction time experiment with 66 male college students, the heart rate for the same cardiac cycle within which the imperative stimulus occurred was slowed. The slowing was greater for imperative stimuli presented early in the cardiac cycle than late. The “monotonic” (linear) trend was highly significant, p< 10-8. There was also a significant “bitonic” (quadratic) trend, p <.01. Three subgroups of subjects, split on the basis of heart rate level, each showed significant trends with significant differences in the trend-components among groups. Analyses of ready signal presentations and of a control point in the intertrial interval revealed no comparable effects. The results were replicated in a second experiment in which 20 male college students self-initiated tachistoscopic exposures. In this experiment, the next cardiac cycle, subsequent to the cardiac cycle in which the self-initiated response occurred, was also shown to exhibit systematic modification with changes in the temporal placement of the response within the preceding cycle. The phenomena described are strikingly parallel with results obtained in animals upon direct stimulation of the vagus and carotid sinus nerves, and in man upon stimulation of the carotid sinus with neck suction. The results constitute the first demonstration in intact man of differential modification of heart period with temporal variations of the placement of “significant” sensorimotor events within the cardiac cycle.
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This research was supported by a grant (MH 623) from the National Institute of Mental Health. A preliminary report of part of this paper was made at the 1972 annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research (see B. C. Lacey and J. I. Lacey, 1973).
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Lacey, B.C., Lacey, J.I. Change in heart period: A function of sensorimotor event timing within the cardiac cycle. Psychobiology 5, 383–393 (1977). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335349
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335349