Brain Response Correlates of Repressiveness

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Abstract
Averaged evoked responses (AER) to tactile stimulation were compared for two groups of same-sex adolescent twins. An experimental group consisted of 5 pairs of twins who differed in repressiveness ratings based on the Rorschach; a control group consisted of 5 pairs of twins who were identical in repressiveness ratings. Significant amplitude differences ( p < .01) were found for three components of the AER for the twins who differed in repressiveness while comparable differences were not found for the control group. Sensitivity to the ideational effects of a subliminal visual stimulus was found to be associated with low repressiveness ( p < .05). These findings support the hypothesis that repressiveness is reflected in an intensification of attention directed to neutral external stimuli as demonstrated by an increase in amplitude of AER components previously found to be associated with attentional processes and a decrease in attention to internal, ideational processes as reflected in low sensitivity to subliminal inputs.