PSYC 804 & 711:Psychophysiology

Definition• Darrow (1964):

– the science which concerns physiological activities which underlie or relate to psychic events

• Andreassi (1995)– the study of relations between psychological manipulations

and resulting physiological responses, measured in the living organism, to promote understanding of the relation between mental and bodily processes

• Hugdahl (1995)– The study of brain-behavior relationships in the framework

of peripheral and central physiological responses• Cacioppo Tassinary & Berntson (2000):

– the scientific study of social, psychological, and behavioral phenomena as related to and revealed through physiological principles and events in functional organisms

Definition• Additions/clarifications

– The use of non-invasive physiological dependent or independent variables to gain insights into psychological questions

• Psychophysiological methods can– provide an independent method – provide information that is not accessible through

other psychological methods

• Both a conceptual & methodological system– Assessment can only be devised properly with

reference to the research question, the particular theoretical constructs and their operationalization, the experimental design, and statistical hypotheses

Example of importance of theory

• Heart rate (bpm)• May indicate a range of different theoretical

concepts:– Sinus rhythm

– Emotional state

– Activation and attention

– Brain laterality

– Metabolic state

– Hemodynamic regulation

Tools“Classic Measures”

• Skin Conductance (level and response)• Cardiac measures (heart rate, variability,

contractility, both SNS and PNS measures, BP, plethysmography)

• Oculomotor and pupilometric measures• Electromyographic activity• Respiration• Gastrointestinal activity• Penile and vaginal plethysmography• Electroencephalographic oscillatory

measures (frequency domain EEG)• Event-related brain potentials• Event-related frequency changes

“Newer Measures”• Hormonal and

Endocrinological measures• Immune function• Functional neuroimaging

– PET– fMRI– Optical Imaging

Manipulations• Biofeedback• Rapid Trans cranial Magnetic

Stimulation• Alterations of cardiac

pacemakers

Problems of Inference

• One to one – an element in psychological set is associated with one and only one element in physio set, and vice versa

• Many to one – 2 or more psycho elements are associated with same physio element

• These allow a formal specification of psych elements as function of physio elements.

Typical Scenarios

• Typical assumption of psychophysiological study where physio is measured:

– P(Φ| Ψ) > 0

• Typical assumption of psychophysiological study where physio is manipulated:

– P(Ψ| Φ ) > 0

• Typical hunt for “markers” or biological substrate– Study begins P(Φ| Ψ) > 0– Desirable (but often invalid) inference

• Need P(Ψ|Φ) > 0

The Taxonomy of Φ and Ψ

From Cacioppo, Tassinary, & Berntson, 2000

Problems and Prospects for Psychophysiology

Problems/Challenges• Interpretive ambiguity• Time resolution and time courses of various

systems/measures differ substantially• Spatial resolution• What is the functional significance of the observed

physiological measure?

Problems and Prospects for Psychophysiology

Prospects• Non-invasive• Measures of real‑time information• May be sensitive to things that we ourselves cannot be • Ideally suited for populations that have limited

verbal/cognitive capacity • May tap function at roughly the proper level of the nervous

system to be useful to psychological investigators• Even though there will always be newer technologies (e.g.,

PET, SPECT, MEG, MRI, functional MRI, etc.), psychophysiology

– has real-time resolution – is flexible– is cost-effective– can be integrated with many of the newer technologies

Interesting findings in psychophysiology

• Bauer (1984): Prosopagnosia

• Öhman & Soares (1993): Phobias & evolutionary preparedness

• Cacioppo (1979): Manipulation of HR & cognitive elaboration

• Allen, Iacono, & Danielson (1992): Lying

• Wexler, Warrenburg, Schwartz, & Janer (1992): Unconscious emotion

• Pennebaker, Barger, & Tiebout (1989): personal disclosures of traumas and health

Bauer (1984): Neuropsychologia

• Prosopagnosia – unable to recognize familiar faces (family, self, etc.)

• Administered a version of the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT)– As administered to the prosopagnosic patient

• Set A consisted of 10 photographs of very famous folks; Set B consisted of 8 family members

• During the photo display, five choices of the correct name were presented auditorially

• Results– Patient naming: 0/10 famous faces, 0/8 family members – Controls naming = 9/10 famous, 0/8 of patient's family members– Electrodermally, patient produced largest SCR to correct alternative

• for 60% of famous faces (controls 80%, ns difference), • for 62.5% of family members (controls 37.5%)

• Conclusion– GKT & SC used to demonstrate “implicit” recognition in prosopagnosia

Öhman & Soares (1993)Journal of Abnormal Psychology

• Information processing of the phobic stimulus may be rooted in evolutionary prepared mechanisms outside of conscious control

• Use a CS+/CS- paradigm for fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant stimuli

– Fear relevant is snake/spider; irrelevant is a flower or mushroom

– During acquisition trials, CS+ is shocked, CS- is not– This leads to larger SCR to CS+ than CS- – After acquisition, masked presentations (30 msec,

followed by 100 msec mask) – Electrodermally, masking effectively eliminates the

difference between CS+ and CS- for fear-irrelevant stimuli, but the difference between CS+/CS- is preserved for fear-relevant stimuli

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SCR

Fear Relevant Fear Irrelevant

SCR to stimuli during extinction -- masked trials

CS+CS-

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SCR

Fear Relevant Fear Irrelevant

SCR to stimuli during extinction -- unmasked trials

CS+CS-

During masked trials, SCR differs between CS+ and CS- only to fear-relevant.

During unmasked trials, SCR differs between CS+ and CS- to both fear-relevant andFear-irrelevant stimuli.

Cacioppo (1979) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

• Laceys predicted that – Increased heart rate (HR) associated with & facilitates cognitive elaboration– Decreased HR associated with & facilitates sensory reception

• Previous studies only measured HR• Manipulate HR & assess effects on reading comprehension, reactions to persuasion• Outpatients with cardiac pacemakers• Basal HR of 72 bpm• Uncapped magnet placed over pacemaker increased HR to 88 bpm• Ps could not detect change in HR• Reading comprehension was better during increased HR (48.68%) than during basal HR (39.33%) – Study 1• Increased HR caused more thoughts and counterarguments to counterattitudinal message – Study 2

Allen, Iacono, & Danielson (1992) Psychophysiology

• Conventional Polygraphy unacceptably inaccurate• Could use a cognitive response of recognition, which is

independent of response related processes• P3 of ERP reflects significance of stimulus at encoding &

relates to subsequent recognition & recall of information• Ps learn 2 list of words perfectly• Then, presented old and new words & had to indicate

whether the words were learned or not.• Ps told to (1) conceal that they had learned one list of words

(hide the fact that you learned those words), (2) lie about old words, or (3) win $5 if they could keep the equipment from detecting which words had been learned

Allen, Iacono, & Danielson (1992) Psychophysiology

Wexler, Warrenburg, Schwartz, & Janer (1992) -- Neuropsychologia

• Dichotic stimulus pairs were constructed with one word that was emotionally neutral and another word that evoked positive or negative feelings.

• Temporal & spectral overlap between members of each pair was so great that the 2 words fused into single auditory percept.

• Thus, Ps heard either neutral or positive/negative word consciously.

• Measured facial EMG after presentation of each trial (total 52).

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Conscious Unconscious Neutral

Corrugator EMG responses

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Negative

Neutral

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Conscious Unconscious

Corrugator EMG responses to negative stimuli

right corr

left corr

Pennebaker, Barger, & Tiebout (1989) – Psychosomatic Medicine

• Predicted that the more individuals disclosed personally traumatic experiences, the better their long-term health following the disclosure

• 33 Holocaust survivors talked about WWII experiences while SCL was recorded

• Amount of trauma discussed rated by independent raters, each minute

• Negative correlations between trauma and SCL indicate high personal disclosure (based on past research)

• The more negative the above correlation, the less likely participants were to visit a physician for illness