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Selective attention and response inhibition alter phase-dependent cardiac slowing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2002

FREDERIK M. VAN DER VEEN ,
MAURITS W. VAN DER MOLEN  and
J. RICHARD JENNINGS
FREDERIK M. VAN DER VEEN
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Brain and Behavior Institute, Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands
MAURITS W. VAN DER MOLEN
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
J. RICHARD JENNINGS
Affiliation:
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
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Abstract

This study examined the effects of visual selective attention and stimulus discriminability on phasic heart rate changes. Grating stimuli consisting of four vertical bars were presented left or right from fixation. Participants attended to one side of the screen and responded with a button press to attended target stimuli that were defined by shorter middle bars. Stimulus discriminability was manipulated by increasing the length of the middle bars of targets. To examine the time course of response inhibition, participants had to respond to auditory probe stimuli that were presented occasionally and unpredictably at varying intervals following the visual stimulus. Responses to targets and probes following attended nontargets were slower in the difficult condition. Heart rate slowed in anticipation of a target and accelerated back to baseline afterwards. Phase-dependent cardiac slowing was larger for attended nontargets compared to unattended nontargets and was more pronounced in the difficult condition. These findings were interpreted vis-à-vis inhibition accounts of phase-dependent cardiac slowing.

Keywords

Heart rateVisual selective attentionResponse probesResponse inhibition
Type
Research Article
Information
Psychophysiology , Volume 38 , Issue 6 , November 2001 , pp. 896 - 902
Copyright
© 2001 Society for Psychophysiological Research

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