Hysterical personality: An experimental investigation of sex-role conflict.

Divided 39 female hysterical personalities and 39 nonhysterics, selected with the hysterical personality measure, into 3 groups receiving no threat, academic threat, and sex-role threat. 3 measures were obtained: (a) GSR, (b) visual recognition thresholds for sexual and neutral phrases, and (c) personality ratings of male and female Es. Results showed that: (a) both types of threat produced heightened GSR for all Ss; (b) sex-role threat produced lower thresholds for sexual words among hysterics; and (c) hysterics' ratings were more positive for the male E compared with the female E under no threat, but reversed under threat conditions. It is concluded that anxiety over inadequacy and sex-role competency in particular are significant variables affecting the behavior of the hysterical personality. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The validity of the guilty knowledge technique: The effects of faking.

In developing an alternative to the lie detector, a questionnaire was given 20 Ss with the GSR. 1 response in each multiple-choice item was a guilty response known to the examiner. Ss were bribed to defeat the GSR after being trained to do so. They failed. Although conventional methods may be used in more instances, this objectively scored, guilt knowledge test offers a valuable alternative. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mechanism and measurement of the galvanic skin response.

The measurement of the GSR is subject to error from many sources. Recent work has elucidated the peripheral mechanism of the response and has provided an appropriate electrical model. This review considers the measurement and analysis of the GSR in the light of this recent work. The relative merits of constant current (resistance) and constant voltage (conductance) measurements are discussed; the optimal electrode systems are defined, and dc and ac methods are compared. A brief survey of the organismic and environmental variables which influence the response is included. (2 p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of two independent stresses upon autonomic responding.

Attempted to determine whether the GSR and cardiac response to "aversive" photographs contained both orienting and emotional components. 40 female undergraduates were shown either photographs of dead or photographs of live individuals projected upside down. 1/2 of the Ss expected, but never received, shocks. Data were interpreted to indicate that in addition to the orienting response, an emotional component was present in the response to the aversive photographs. The effect of shock threat was to increase reactivity to all stimuli. Analysis revealed that the GSR was most responsive to the content of the stimuli while the cardiac response was most sensitive to the shock threat. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Incubation effect: Role of awareness in an immediate versus delayed test of conditioned emotionality.

"The purpose of the study was to test the view that conditioned emotionality, as measured by the GSR, increases after a delay and that this increase is greater when the subject is aware of the relation between the CS and UCS. Certain words were associated with shock. The subject was aware of the relation between one word and shock but was unaware of the relation between a second word and shock. The GSR to these words was compared to the GSR to a word not associated with shock." The results confirmed the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new look at an old issue: Manifest Anxiety Scale validity.

Investigated the efficacy of MA scale scores as a measure of situational drive level using 48 undergraduates. The MA scale was used as a dependent variable, i.e., it was administered while drive level was systematically manipulated. Drive state was varied at 4 levels by the induced muscular tension technique while heart rate (HR) and GSR activity were recorded. The physiological measures indicate that drive level was effectively varied; however, no meaningful relationship between MA scale scores and HR and GSR activity was observed. The intercorrelation between HR and GSR was low but significant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electrodermal habituation and subjective response: Effects of manifest anxiety and autonomic arousal.

Studied the effects of cortical function and individual differences on galvanic skin response (GSR) habituation to tones of low and moderate intensity. 40 female undergraduates were divided into high- and low-anxious groups, on the basis of their Taylor Manifest Anxiety scale scores, and into high- and low-arousal groups, on the basis of their resting-level GSR activity. High-anxious Ss perceived nonchanging, nonnoxious moderate and low tones as increasing in intensity over trials while their electrodermal responses to the tones were habituating. Although the low-anxious group and the high- and low-arousal groups also showed electrodermal habituation, there were no significant effects of trials for intensity ratings. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-verbalization and emotional arousal.

Investigated certain assumptions derived from A. Ellis' theory relating implicit verbalization to emotional arousal. Emotional responses (GSR and respiration changes) of 18 undergraduates instructed to silently read sequences of affectively loaded sentences were compared with those of 9 Ss who read neutral sentences. The relationship between relevance to S of the content of the sentences and level of emotional response was investigated, as was the effect of sentence type (observation, inference, or evaluative conclusion) on level of emotional response. Results were that Ss showed a significantly greater response to affectively loaded than to neutral sentences on 2 out of 3 responses measures. Neither relevance nor sentence type were found to have any significant effect. Results were interpreted as offering only partial support for the theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

GSR conditioning, anxiety, and extraversion.

"Hypotheses by Eysenck and Spence relating GSR conditioning to extraversion and anxiety, respectively, were examined… [Ss] scoring on the extremes of anxiety and extraversion were selected… . Using a conditioned response amplitude measure,… a significant positive relationship was found between anxiety and conditioning. No significant relationship was found between extraversion and conditioning… . The results give clear support to Spence's theory while failing to support that of Eysenck." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4CG27B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy of brightness discrimination as measured by concurrent verbal responses and GSRs.

"In… subliminal perception experiments some response shows discriminative accuracy at stimulus values below the threshold of awareness determined by classical psychophysical techniques. The procedure is objectionable because the threshold measure admits extraneous variance that the measure of 'subliminal accuracy' does not… . This experiment compares the discriminative accuracy of GSR and verbal response when assessed by the same forced-choice psychophysical technique." Results indicated "the verbal response showed significantly higher correlation with the stimulus than did the GSR… neither response was significantly more accurate than the other." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive factors in differential conditioning of the GSR: Use of a reaction time task as the UCS with normals and schizophrenics.

22 normals and 22 schizophrenics underwent differential conditioning of the GSR, using 8-sec tones of differing frequencies as the CSs, an 8-sec CS-UCS interval, and a UCS comprised of an RT task signaled by a low-intensity light. Both intertrial reports and postconditioning interviews were obtained. 12 Ss in the normal group verbalized the CS relations accurately, compared to 3 Ss in the schizophrenic group. The normal group showed significant GSR differentiation, though conditioning was limited to the group of accurately verbalizing Ss. No evidence for conditioning was obtained in the schizophrenic group. Normal Ss had faster RTs than schizophrenic Ss. The RT of accurately verbalizing normals was shorter than that of inaccurately verbalizing normals, and the degree of GSR differentiation was significantly correlated with RT. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between a dimension of body image and two measures of conditioning.

Hypothesized that definiteness of the body image boundary is a variable related to differential ease of acquisition of autonomic conditioned responses. The barrier score, derived from Rorschach ink blots, served as the measure of body image definiteness. 29 High- and 20 low-barrier male undergraduates were subjected to a classical autonomic conditioning procedure. The autonomic responses measured were GSR and heart rate. Results indicate that low-barrier Ss are more susceptible than high-barrier Ss to the conditioned heart rate response while high-barrier Ss are more easily conditioned to the GSR response. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Protection of GSR conditioning by dextroamphetamine.

Administered d-amphetamine (.175 mg/kg) or placebo capsules to 64 normal human adults on 2 successive days in a factorially designed study of GSR acquisition and extinction. Ss performed a phi-phenomenon task during sessions with tone and electric shock as the conditioning stimuli. The drug prevented habituation of conditioned GSRs during acquisition trials, and when given next day it prevented extinction. However, the capacity of this dosage to offset GSR habituation to the tone in a control group was relatively weak, and no influence was discernible on GSRs to shock, levels of skin resistance, or phi-phenomenon response. (French summary) (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A theoretical and empirical integration of the rational-emotive and classical conditioning theories.

Tested the assumptions of A. Ellis's ABC theory of psychopathology, which relates implicit verbalizations to emotional arousal. The theory is recast in a developmental conditioning framework which becomes the basis for criticism of a previous study by D. C. Rimm and S. G. Litvak (see record 1969-09037-001) of these assumptions. An empirical replication and extension was conducted, in which 5 hypotheses were derived and tested, using 40 female undergraduates as Ss. Sentence dyads, relevance of content, and neuroticism were manipulated. Response measures were galvanic skin conductance, respiration rate, and respiration depth. Only the galvanic skin response (GSR) measure differentiated the responses of the experimental Ss (with emotionally loaded stimuli) from those of control Ss (with neutral stimuli). The ABC theory was supported by the GSR measure on 3 of the 5 hypotheses under investigation. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An experimental comparison of the psychological stress evaluator and the galvanic skin response in detection of deception.

The Psychological Stress Evaluator (PSE), which is asserted to be a voice-mediated lie detector, and the GSR, recorded with a standard field polygraph instrument, were used to detect nonrisk lies about numbered cards concealed by 30 female and 30 male college students. Evaluation of response data was subjectively carried out by 2 trained evaluators; their interrater agreement was .38 for PSE analysis and .92 for GSR evaluation. The hit rates obtained in PSE analysis were at chance levels and were not significantly affected by the sex of the Ss, simultaneous use of both PSE (tape recording) and polygraph apparatus, repeated trials of testing, or evaluator differences. Evaluations based on GSR analysis generally exceeded chance levels; however, hit rates were significantly higher in a 1st trial of testing than in a 2nd trial. Findings are consistent with previous research and do not indicate that the PSE is effective in detecting deception. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Galvanic skin response as a measure of patient's reaction to therapist's permissiveness.

"Frequency of a patient's galvanic skin response is shown to be inversely related to the judged permissiveness of the therapist during a series of 42 hours of psychotherapy. The GSR is interpreted as a measure of the anxiety of the patient, or his 'mobilization' against any cue threatening punishment by the therapist, such as any cue which the patient has learned to perceive as evidence of low esteem. This anxiety presumably motivates varying subtle forms of resistance and defense against the feared punishment. Several alternative interpretations of the relation between permissiveness and GSR are rejected by various findings." GSR is related to the emotional significance of the patient's speech, as well as to the permissiveness of the therapist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Flooding and systematic desensitization: Efficacy in subclinical phobics as a function of arousal.

Data from 48 female students show that the level of physiological arousal of these subclinical phobics was not a factor in response to systematic desensitization or flooding. Results confirm the findings of B. A. McCutcheon and H. E. Adams (1975), which indicate that flooding of sufficient duration eliminates avoidance behavior in terms of a behavioral test and spontaneous fluctuations of the GSR, but has little effect on subjective reports. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validity of the guilty knowledge technique in a prisoner's sample.

Evaluated the guilty knowledge technique as a detector of knowledge held by 30 prisoners in a maximum security prison in Israel. In an initial interview, Ss responded to 20 questions designed to elicit personal responses or items. During a later interrogation, Ss were presented verbally with (a) the same 20 questions and (b) 5 alternative responses including their own personal response and 4 neutral control responses. During the interrogation, Ss listened quietly while their GSRs were monitored. On the basis of the GSR data, a significant proportion (p     

Body image and asymmetry of body reactivity.

The hypothesis tested was that the more definitely one distinguishes the right and left sides of his body in his body image, the more likely he is to show differential reactivity in the left vs. right sides of his body. Ss compared homologous body parts while viewing them through aniseikonic lenses to determine body-image differentiation. Body reactivity was determined by means of GSR recordings. Right handed Ss who clearly distinguished their right and left body sides were likely to show a GSR gradient showing the left side to be more reactive than the right. 21 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between GSR and speech disturbances in psychotherapy.

"… the relationship between points of emotional arousal or anxiety as defined by the GSR and the occurrence of speech disturbances in psychotherapy [was investigated]. Synchronized GSR and verbal recordings… provided the basic data." Speech disturbances were maximal at times coincident with GSR deflections and decreased in frequency on either side of GSR deflections. Additional validity is provided for both speech disturbances and the GSR as measures of momentary changes in anxiety level in psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)