ELECTRODERMAL INDICANTS OE AROUSAL IN BRAIN DAMAGE: CROSS‐VALIDATED EINDINGS

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Abstract
Two independent experiments were performed in which skin resistance levels, transformed to log skin conductance levels (SCLs), and GSRs of brain‐damaged (BD) and non‐brain‐damaged (NBD) patients were measured under varying task demands. Cross‐validated results indicate that BD had significantly higher log SCLs and GRSs than NBD over conditions. Patterns of correlations between and within measures of arousal and performance were similar in both experiments and tended to differ for BD compared to NBD. Positive correlations between arousal measures and performance in the BD suggest that their impaired performance cannot be ascribed to non‐optimal levels of arousal, at least as measured electrodermally. A group of schizophrenics subjected to the same experimental conditions had levels of electrodermal activity and performance which were intermediate to those of BD and NBD. Other results suggest that different psychophysiological relationships exist in BD and schizophrenic patients. The hypothesis that brain‐damage leads to release of inhibitory control over systems involved in electrodermal activity seems worthy of further investigation.

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