ISSN:
1469-8986
Source:
Blackwell Publishing Journal Backfiles 1879-2005
Topics:
Medicine
,
Psychology
Notes:
In a previous study (Bernal & Miller, 1970), striking differences were found between schizophrenic and normal children in the magnitude of their galvanic skin responses (GSRs) to simple sensory stimuli. However, the Lang and Hnatiow (1962) measure of cardiac response failed to demonstrate these GSR group differences. The present paper is a followup of the Bernal and Miller study and its purpose was to evaluate the use of various measures of heart rate (HR) in discriminating between clinical and normal groups of children.The cardiac data were converted to measures that were (1) independent of and dependent upon prestimulus HR level, and (2) based upon individually and group derived decelerative trough in HR. The main results of the analyses of variance for repeated measurements were: (1) no single HR measure was found to delineate the cardiac response reliably across stimulus conditions or between groups of Ss, and (2) individually-determined HR deceleration, especially when corrected via covariance analysis for prestimulus level, was superior to a group-determined decelerative HR measure in demonstrating both habituation and group effects.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1971.tb00486.x
