Final Report on Project on An Examination of Response Parameters of Electrodermal Responding to Standard Stimuli

Abstract

This report contains the results of two studies of the relative merits of using skin conductance or skin resistance to evaluate the amplitude of electrodermal responses to external stimuli. The studies also addressed the relative merits of correcting responses for baseline, rather than using raw amplitude measures. The first study employed an oddball paradigm to determine whether skin resistance or skin conductance, or baseline corrected ratio measures are best suited to discriminating oddball stimuli from a background of frequently occurring standard stimuli. The results indicated that there is no empirical basis for assuming that any particular measure has any advantage in allowing for reliable indexing of response differences between oddball (i. e., "novel") and standard stimuli. This suggests the possibility that the use of uncorrected amplitude measures in field applications may be as reasonable as any other technique. The second study attempted to determine if any electrodermal index was more well suited than others for assessing the magnitude of response to external stimuli differing in intensity. The data indicated that there was no apparent advantage to using any particular index of electrodermal response magnitude in favor of any other. All indices showed the same response curves with respect to stimulus intensity and subjective magnitude estimation of stimulus intensity.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 2003
Accession Number
ADA412501

Entities

People

  • Edward S. Katkin

Organizations

  • State University of New York

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Amplitude
  • Applied Psychology
  • Data Analysis
  • Department Of Defense
  • Electrical Properties
  • Electrical Resistance
  • Electrodes
  • Galvanic Skin Response
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Intensity
  • Judgment
  • Medical Personnel
  • New York
  • Psychology
  • Psychophysiology
  • Sweat Glands

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Geodesy
  • Regression Analysis.
  • Systems Analysis and Design