Skin Conductance, Marlowe-Crowne Defensiveness, and Dental Anxiety

1994 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 611-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Benjamins ◽  
Albert H. B. Schuurs ◽  
Johan Hoogstraten

The present study assesses the relationship between self-reported dental anxiety (Dental Anxiety Inventory, Dental Anxiety Scale, and Duration of Psychophysiological Fear Reactions), electrodermal activity (skin-conductance level and frequency of spontaneous responses), and Marlowe-Crowne defensiveness. All measurements were made twice. The first session was scheduled immediately before a semi-annual dental check-up (stress condition), and baseline measurements were made two months later without the prospect of a dental appointment. Subjects were male dental patients who regularly attended a university dental clinic and a clinic for Special Dental Care. The main findings were that the low anxious-high defensive-scoring (Marlowe-Crowne Denial subscale) university patients showed significantly higher skin-conductance levels and frequency of nonspecific fluctuations than the low anxious-low defensive-scoring subjects. Besides, the conductance values of the low anxious-high defensive-scoring subjects resembled those of the high anxious-low defensive-scoring patients of the clinic for Special Dental Care, the baseline frequency of nonspecific fluctuations excepted.

2005 ◽  
Vol os12 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edith M Allen ◽  
Nick M Girdler

Introduction Anxiety and fear in relation to dentistry are long-standing problems and the incidence of dental fear does not appear to be decreasing. It can result in poor dental health and wastage of clinical time. Conscious sedation is one method of allaying anxiety in dental patients and enables such patients to accept dental treatment. Aims, Materials and Methods A questionnaire survey was undertaken among patients attending an emergency dental clinic. Its aims were to assess the levels of dental anxiety in these subjects, the impact on their attendance for dental treatment, and their knowledge of and desire to have conscious sedation, should it be available. Results The results indicated that in the 72 patients who responded, levels of anxiety regarding dental treatment were high, with 49 (68%) claiming some nervousness or worse. Thirty-one (43%) cited fear/nervousness as a reason for delaying making a dental appointment. Twenty-seven (38%) were not aware of the existence of conscious sedation for dental treatment, of whom half reported that they were in the highly anxious group. Forty (56%) respondents said they would like to have sedation if it were available. Twenty-five (35%) claimed to have received sedation for dental treatment in the past. Conclusion It was concluded that the availability of dental sedation was currently not matching the needs and demands of several patients who took part in the survey. Increased availability of dental sedation could remove a barrier to dental care for many highly anxious dental patients.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Behrens ◽  
J. A. Snijdewint ◽  
R. G. Moulder ◽  
E. Prochazkova ◽  
E. E. Sjak-Shie ◽  
...  

AbstractCooperation is pivotal for society to flourish. To foster cooperation, humans express and read intentions via explicit signals and subtle reflections of arousal visible in the face. Evidence is accumulating that humans synchronize these nonverbal expressions and the physiological mechanisms underlying them, potentially influencing cooperation. The current study is designed to verify this putative linkage between synchrony and cooperation. To that end, 152 participants played the Prisoner’s Dilemma game in a dyadic interaction setting, sometimes facing each other and sometimes not. Results showed that synchrony in both heart rate and skin conductance level emerged during face-to-face contact. However, only synchrony in skin conductance levels predicted cooperative success of dyads. Crucially, this positive linkage was strengthened when participants could see each other. These findings show the strong relationship between our bodily responses and social behavior, and emphasize the importance of studying social processes between rather than within individuals in real-life interactions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 321-329
Author(s):  
José Maria Chagas VIANA FILHO ◽  
Marayza Alves CLEMENTINO ◽  
Larissa Chaves Morais de LIMA ◽  
Ana Flávia Granville GARCIA ◽  
Margarida Maria Pontes de CARVALHO ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Objective: To verify the prevalence and association of parents’ and children’s anxiety concerning socioeconomic variables and child’s behavior during dental care. Methods: This was a quantitative, observational, transversal and descriptive study. Data collection was performed through a questionnaire aiming at sociodemographic data and dental experience as well as Venham Picture Test, Corah Dental Anxiety Scales and Frankl Anxiety Scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (Chi-square and Fisher’s exact test), α = 0.05. Results: The sample consisted of 7 to 9 year- old children (57.9%.), of whom 72.6% were submitted to invasive procedures. The prevalence of anxiety among children was 43.2% (n = 41). Regarding parents / guardians, the prevalence of anxiety was 88.4% (n = 84). A significant association was found between the dental appointment experience and the child’s anxiety (p = 0.050) using the VPT. A significant association between anxiety and the type of dental procedure (p = 0.017) as well as the child’s experience (p = 0.000) using the Frankl scale. Conclusion: There was no association between anxiety and socioeconomic variables. In the variables related to dental experiences, a significant association was found between the experience of the dental appointment and the anxiety of the child using the VPT scale. An association between anxiety and the type of procedure was observed, as well as dental appointment experience, using Frankl scale.


Author(s):  
Jiaxu Zhou ◽  
Xiaohu Jia ◽  
Guoqiang Xu ◽  
Junhan Jia ◽  
Rihan Hai ◽  
...  

Due to differences in cognitive ability and physiological development, the evacuation characteristics of children are different from those of adults. This study proposes a novel method of using wearable sensors to collect data (e.g., electrodermal activity, EDA; heart rate variability, HRV) on children’s physiological responses, and to continuously and quantitatively evaluate the effects of different types of alarm sounds during the evacuation of children. In order to determine the optimum alarm for children, an on-site experiment was conducted in a kindergarten to collect physiological data for responses to different types of alarm sounds during the evacuation of 42 children of different ages. The results showed that: (1) The alarm sounds led to changes in physiological indicators of children aged 3–6 years, and the effects of different types of alarm sounds on EDA and HRV activities were significantly different (p < 0.05). Skin conductance (SC), skin conductance tonic (SCT) and skin conductance level (SCL) can be used as the main indicators for analysing EDA of children in this experiment (p < 0.05), and the indicators of ultralow frequency (ULF) and very low frequency (VLF) for HRV were not affected by the type of alarm sounds (p > 0.05). (2) Unlike adults, kindergarten children were more susceptible to the warning siren. The combined voice and warning alarm had optimal effects in stimulating children to perceive risk. (3) For children aged 3–6 years, gender had a significant impact on children’s reception to evacuation sound signals (p < 0.05): Girls are more sensitive than boys in receiving evacuation sound signals, similar to findings of studies of risk perception of adult males and females. In addition, the higher the age, the greater the sensitivity to evacuation sound signals, which accords with results of previous studies on the evacuation dynamics of children.


1980 ◽  
Vol 137 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Mirkin ◽  
A. Coppen

SummaryElectrodermal activity was measured in a group of depressive patients and normal controls. Those patients classified as endogenous on the Newcastle Scale had significantly lower skin conductance levels than either the non-endogenous patients or controls. The endogenous depressives also contained significantly more non-responders to the experimental stimuli. The lack of responsivity to external stimulation in non-responders is associated with a significantly lower rate of blood platelet 5-hydroxytryptamine uptake, suggesting that endogenous depressives have biological characteristics that distinguish them from other depressive groups and that electrodermal measures may be useful in the classification of depressive illness.


2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 193-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asmir Gračanin ◽  
Igor Kardum ◽  
Jasna Hudek-Knežević

The present research examined the moderating effects of four personality traits (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism) and their facets as measured by NEO-PI-R ( Costa & McCrae, 2005 ) on the relationship between emotion suppression and sympathetic activation. Peripheral pulse amplitude (PPA), spontaneous skin conductance response fluctuations (SCR), and skin conductance level (SCL) were recorded in 129 university students, who were given instruction to behave as usual or to suppress their emotions while watching neutral and emotional movie clips. The results show that only agreeableness and one of its facets, tendermindedness (A6), moderated the effects of suppression on changes in PPA and SCR. While participants were watching emotional movie clip under the instruction to suppress, the level of sympathetic arousal in high agreeable persons increased more compared to those with lower agreeableness. These results were explained by the mechanisms related to the arousability and trait-incongruence responses.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solène Le Bars ◽  
Alexandre Devaux ◽  
Tena Nevidal ◽  
Valerian Chambon ◽  
Elisabeth Pacherie

The sense of agency (SoA) experienced in joint action is an essential subjective dimension of human cooperativeness, but we still know little about the specific factors that contribute to its emergence or alteration. In the present study, dyads of participants were instructed to coordinate their key presses to move a cursor up to a specific target (i.e., to achieve a common goal). We applied random deviations on the cursor’s trajectory to manipulate the motor fluency of the joint action, while the agents’ motor roles were either balanced (i.e., equivalent) or unbalanced (i.e., one agent contributed more than the other), making the agents more or less pivotal to the joint action. Then, the final outcomes were shared equally, fairly (i.e., reflecting individual motor contributions) or arbitrarily in an all-or none fashion, between the co-agents. Self and joint SoA were measured through self-reports about feeling of control (FoC), and electrodermal activity was recorded during the whole motor task. We observed that self and joint FoC were reduced in the case of low motor fluency, pointing out the importance of sensorimotor cues for both I- and we-modes. Moreover, while self FoC was reduced in the low pivotality condition (i.e., low motor role), joint FoC was significantly enhanced when agents’ roles and rewards were symmetrical (i.e. equal). Skin conductance responses to rewards were impacted by the way outcomes were shared between partners (i.e., fairly, equally or arbitrarily) but not by the individual gains, which demonstrates the sensitivity of low-level physiological reactions to external signs of fairness. Skin conductance level was also reduced in the fair context, where rewards were shared according to individual motor contributions, relative to the all-or-none context, which could mirror the feeling of effective responsibility and control over actions’ outcomes.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilena Bauer ◽  
Julia Hartkopf ◽  
Anna-Karin Wikström ◽  
Nora Schaal ◽  
Hubert Preissl ◽  
...  

Background: Prenatal maternal stress can have adverse effects on birth outcomes and fetal development. Relaxation techniques have been examined as one potential countermeasure. This study investigates different relaxation techniques and their effect on mood and physiological stress levels in pregnant women.Methods: 36 pregnant women (30 to 40 weeks of gestation) were randomly assigned to one of three groups: music, guided imagery or resting. Dependent measures included self-report questionnaires, subjective ratings of stress levels as well as physiological measures, i.e. cardiovascular and electrodermal activity.Results: All three forms of relaxation led to reduced maternal stress: decreased heart rate and decreased skin conductance levels. Based on heart rate, skin conductance level and stress ratings there were no significant differences between relaxation interventions. Subjective post-intervention stress ratings indicated that more relaxation occured after intervention in earlier gestation than in late gestation.Conclusion: Independent of relaxation technique, a 20-minute period of acute relaxation can reduce maternal stress. Notably, women earlier in pregnancy reported to be more relaxed after the intervention than women later in gestation. Hence, gestational age can influence perceived stress levels and should be considered when evaluating relaxation or stress management interventions during pregnancy.


Author(s):  
Yedukondala Rao Veeranki ◽  
Nagarajan Ganapathy ◽  
Ramakrishnan Swaminathan

In this work, an attempt has been made to classify various emotional states in Electrodermal Activity (EDA) signals using modified Hjorth features and non-parametric classifiers. For this, the EDA signals are collected from a publicly available online database. The EDA is decomposed into SCL (Skin Conductance Level) and SCR (Skin Conductance Response). Five features, namely activity, mobility, complexity, chaos, and hazard, collectively known as modified Hjorth features, are extracted from SCR and SCL. Four non-parametric classifiers, namely, random forest, k-nearest neighbor, support vector machine, and rotation forest, are used for the classification. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach can classify the emotional states in EDA. Most of the features exhibit statistical significance in discriminating emotional states. It is found that the combination of modified Hjorth features and rotation forest is most accurate in classifying the emotional states. Thus, the result demonstrates that this method can recognize valence and arousal dimensions under various clinical conditions.


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