Feedback Effects and Respiratory Involvement in Voluntary Control of Heart Rate

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
One within‐subject single session experiment involving 30 subjects and one between‐subject single session experiment involving 42 subjects were performed to evaluate the effects of augmented sensory feedback and to specify the nature of cardiac‐respiratory relationships during attempted bi‐directional control of heart rate (HR). Subjects were instructed to attempt to control HR while maintaining a constant respiration rate (RR), and were provided with either no feedback, HR feedback, or HR and RR feedback of the “digital” proportional type. In addition to measures of heart and respiratory period, a measure of respiratory volume was included in the second experiment. Results of both experiments indicate that (1) subjects can significantly increase and decrease HR; (2) feedback does not affect the magnitude or consistency of HR control; (3) significant parallel changes in RR accompany changes in HR regardless of the amount of feedback provided; (4) significant increases in respiratory volume accompany HR increases; and (5) large magnitude HR changes arc produced by some subjects within the single session. Implications of these findings for the concomitance model of autonomic and central nervous system interactions; for single vs multiple training sessions; for the use of paced respiration; and for a learning model of HR control are discussed.