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Goren O, Paz A, Bar-Kalifa E, Gilboa-Schectman E, Wolff M, Atzil-Slonim D. Clients' and therapists' parasympathetic interpersonal and intrapersonal regulation dynamics during psychotherapy for depression. Psychother Res 2024:1-15. [PMID: 39024498 DOI: 10.1080/10503307.2024.2378038] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2023] [Accepted: 07/02/2024] [Indexed: 07/20/2024] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The literature on affective regulation in psychotherapy has traditionally relied on explicit client self-report measures. However, both clients' and therapists' affect fluctuate moment-to-moment during a session, highlighting the need for more implicit and continuous indices to better understand these dynamics. This study examined parasympathetic interpersonal and intrapersonal regulation dynamics between therapists and clients with Major Depressive Disorder during Supportive-Expressive Therapy. METHOD Data were collected from 52 dyads across five preselected sessions, using the Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) index. We employed a longitudinal Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, with clients self-reporting their functioning level before and after each session, as the moderator. RESULTS Therapists' RSA at one time point negatively associated with clients' RSA at the next, and vice-versa, indicating interpersonal regulation. Clients' RSA at one time point was positively associated with their RSA at the next, indicating intrapersonal regulation. However, only interpersonal regulation was significantly moderated by clients' pre-to-post session functioning. Specifically, sessions where clients led positive dyadic RSA associations showed greater improvement in clients' functioning than those led by therapists. CONCLUSION Physiological interpersonal regulation, measured by RSA, may be a catalyst for change in depression treatment. Therapists who are responsive to clients' arousal levels may help clients improve their functioning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Omer Goren
- Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
| | - Adar Paz
- Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
| | - Eran Bar-Kalifa
- Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
| | | | - Maya Wolff
- Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
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Hale ME, Morrow KE, Xu J, Han ZR, Oshri A, Shaffer A, Caughy MO, Suveg C. RSA instability in mothers of preschoolers and adolescents is related to observations of supportive parenting behaviors. Dev Psychobiol 2024; 66:e22513. [PMID: 38837367 DOI: 10.1002/dev.22513] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2023] [Revised: 05/13/2024] [Accepted: 05/15/2024] [Indexed: 06/07/2024]
Abstract
Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; a measure of respiratory modulation of vagal control of heart rate) is a dynamic process. For mothers, RSA functioning has been associated with depressive symptoms and coincides with supportive parenting. However, research has largely focused on RSA suppression (i.e., difference score from rest to stress task). The present study examined depressive symptoms and supportive parenting with RSA instability-a dynamic measure of the magnitude of RSA change across a task. In two samples of mothers (N = 210), one with preschoolers (Study 1: n = 108, Mage = 30.68 years, SD = 6.06, 47.0% Black, 43.0% White) and one with adolescents (Study 2: n = 102, Mage = 35.51, SD = 6.51, 75.2% Black), RSA instability was calculated during an interaction task. In both studies, instrumental supportive parenting behaviors were negatively related to RSA instability. Findings provide preliminary support for RSA instability as an indicator of physiological dysregulation for mothers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Molly E Hale
- Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
| | - Kayley E Morrow
- Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
| | - Jianjie Xu
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, National Virtual Simulation Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Zhuo Rachel Han
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, National Virtual Simulation Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Assaf Oshri
- Department of Human Development and Family Science, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
| | - Anne Shaffer
- Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
| | - Margaret O Caughy
- Department of Human Development and Family Science, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
| | - Cynthia Suveg
- Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
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Song Q, Kamliot DZ, Slonecker E, Musser ED, Klemfuss JZ. The interactive roles of narrative processing and emotion negativity/lability in relation to autonomic coordination. Psychophysiology 2024; 61:e14559. [PMID: 38459777 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14559] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2023] [Revised: 02/14/2024] [Accepted: 02/21/2024] [Indexed: 03/10/2024]
Abstract
Emotion regulation (ER) is a multifaceted construct, involving behavioral, cognitive, and physiological processes. Although autonomic coordination is theorized to play a crucial role in adaptive functioning, few studies have examined how different individual and contextual factors together may contribute to such coordination. This study examined the joint influences of narrative processing and emotional negativity/lability (N/L) traits on the coordination of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems in a sample of 112 children, ages 8-12 years (Mage = 10.15 years, SD = 1.33). Children completed a stress-induction task followed by an interview about the task. Children's trait-level N/L was assessed via parent-report on the Emotion Regulation Checklist. Narrative processing was assessed and coded based on children's narrative accounts of the event (i.e., causal coherence, overall emotional tone). Indexes of sympathetic (skin conductance response, SCR) and parasympathetic (respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA) functioning were derived from physiological data obtained during the interview. Results revealed that children's trait-level N/L and narrative processing of the stressful event interacted to predict the RSA-SCR correlation. Specifically, children who were high on either N/L or narrative causal coherence, but not both, demonstrated significant RSA-SCR correlation. Similarly, children with high N/L and negative-to-neutral narratives, as well as those with low N/L and neutral-to-positive narratives, exhibited significant RSA-SCR correlation. This work provides empirical evidence that narrative processing and trait N/L, together with RSA-SCR correlation, work in tandem to regulate emotional arousal.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qingfang Song
- Department of Applied Human Sciences, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA
| | - Deborah Z Kamliot
- Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA
| | - Emily Slonecker
- Department of Psychology, Cabrini University, Radnor, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Erica D Musser
- Department of Psychology, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA
| | - J Zoe Klemfuss
- Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA
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daSilva EB, Wood A. How and Why People Synchronize: An Integrated Perspective. PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW 2024:10888683241252036. [PMID: 38770754 DOI: 10.1177/10888683241252036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/22/2024]
Abstract
Academic AbstractInterpersonal synchrony, the alignment of behavior and/or physiology during interactions, is a pervasive phenomenon observed in diverse social contexts. Here we synthesize across contexts and behaviors to classify the different forms and functions of synchrony. We provide a concise framework for classifying the manifold forms of synchrony along six dimensions: periodicity, discreteness, spatial similarity, directionality, leader-follower dynamics, and observability. We also distill the various proposed functions of interpersonal synchrony into four interconnected functions: reducing complexity and improving understanding, accomplishing joint tasks, strengthening social connection, and influencing partners' behavior. These functions derive from first principles, emerge from each other, and are accomplished by some forms of synchrony more than others. Effective synchrony flexibly adapts to social goals and more synchrony is not always better. Our synthesis offers a shared framework and language for the field, allowing for better cross-context and cross-behavior comparisons, generating new hypotheses, and highlighting future research directions.
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Somers JA, Ho TC, Roubinov D, Lee SS. Integrating Biobehavioral and Environmental Components of Developmental Psychopathology via Interpersonal Dynamics: An RDoC-Advancing Model. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol 2024; 52:491-504. [PMID: 37603188 PMCID: PMC10879449 DOI: 10.1007/s10802-023-01110-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/28/2023] [Indexed: 08/22/2023]
Abstract
Although the Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDoC) framework proposes biological and environmental mechanisms intersect in the etiology of psychopathology, there is no guidance on how to define or measure experiences in the environment within the RDoC matrix. Interpersonal dynamics during caregiver-child interactions involve temporal coordination of interacting partners' biobehavioral functioning; repeated experiences of signaling to caregivers and responding to caregivers' signals shape children's subsequent socioemotional and brain development. We begin with a review of the extant literature on caregiver-child dynamics, which reveals that RDoC's units of analysis (brain circuits, physiology, behavior, and self-report) are inextricably linked with moment-to-moment changes in the caregiving environment. We then offer a proof-of-concept for integrating biobehavioral RDoC units and environmental components via caregiver-child dynamics. Our approach uses dynamic structural equation models to estimate within-dyad dynamics involving arousal, social, cognitive, and negative or positive affective processes based on second-by-second changes in parasympathetic activity (RSA) during a conflict discussion and a positive event-planning task. Our results illustrate variation in parent-child RSA synchrony, suggesting differences depending on the driver (i.e., child- or parent-led) and on the unique and intersecting domains involved (e.g., positive or negative affect valence systems). We conclude with recommendations for conducting robust, methodologically rigorous studies of interpersonal dynamics that advance the RDoC framework and provide a summary of the clinical implications of this research. Examining caregiver-child dynamics during and across multiple dyadic interaction paradigms that differentially elicit key domains of functioning can deepen understanding of how caregiver- and child-led interpersonal dynamics contribute to child psychopathology risk.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer A Somers
- Department of Psychology, University of California, 502 Portola Plaza, Pritzker Hall, CA, 6658, Los Angeles, USA.
| | - Tiffany C Ho
- Department of Psychology, University of California, 502 Portola Plaza, Pritzker Hall, CA, 6658, Los Angeles, USA
| | - Danielle Roubinov
- Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Steve S Lee
- Department of Psychology, University of California, 502 Portola Plaza, Pritzker Hall, CA, 6658, Los Angeles, USA
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Lin D, Zhu T, Wang Y. Emotion contagion and physiological synchrony: The more intimate relationships, the more contagion of positive emotions. Physiol Behav 2024; 275:114434. [PMID: 38092069 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114434] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2023] [Revised: 12/09/2023] [Accepted: 12/10/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023]
Abstract
The study aimed to explore how interpersonal closeness (friends vs. strangers) and emotion type (positive vs. negative) influenced emotion contagion and physiological synchrony between interacting partners. Twenty-eight friend dyads (n = 56) and 29 stranger dyads (n = 58) participated in an emotion contagion laboratory task. In each dyad, one participant, the 'sender', was randomly asked to watch a film clip (neutral, positive, or negative), while their partner, the 'observer' passively observed the sender's facial expressions. Participants' electrocardiograms (ECG) and facial electromyography (EMG) signals were recorded using the BIOPAC system. Results revealed that observing the sender's facial expressions led to the observer's spontaneous mimicry and emotional contagion, accompanied by enhanced physiological synchrony between interacting partners. In the positive emotion condition, the observers reported more positive emotions and displayed stronger zygomaticus major activity in friend dyads than in stranger dyads. Greater physiological synchrony (heart rate and heart rate variability) between interacting partners was also observed in friend dyads than in stranger dyads in the positive emotion condition. These results indicate that positive emotion contagion is more likely to occur between close partners than negative emotion contagion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daichun Lin
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Tongtong Zhu
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
| | - Yanmei Wang
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China; Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai, China.
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Levenson RW. Two's company: Biobehavioral research with dyads. Biol Psychol 2024; 185:108719. [PMID: 37939868 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2023.108719] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/18/2023] [Revised: 10/28/2023] [Accepted: 11/03/2023] [Indexed: 11/10/2023]
Abstract
The development of paradigms for studying dyadic interaction in the laboratory and methods and analytics for dealing with dyadic data is described. These are illustrated with research findings from the author and others with particular focus on dyadic measures of linkage or synchrony in physiology, expressive behavior, and subjective affective experience.
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8
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Qaiser J, Leonhardt ND, Le BM, Gordon AM, Impett EA, Stellar JE. Shared Hearts and Minds: Physiological Synchrony During Empathy. AFFECTIVE SCIENCE 2023; 4:711-721. [PMID: 38156252 PMCID: PMC10751274 DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00210-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2022] [Accepted: 07/19/2023] [Indexed: 12/30/2023]
Abstract
Empathy is a multidimensional construct that includes changes in cognitive, affective, and physiological processes. However, the physiological processes that contribute to empathic responding have received far less empirical attention. Here, we investigated whether physiological synchrony emerged during an empathy-inducing activity in which individuals disclosed a time of suffering while their romantic partner listened and responded (N = 111 couples). Further, we examined the extent to which trait and state measures of cognitive and affective empathy were associated with each other and with physiological synchrony during this activity. We found evidence for physiological synchrony in skin conductance reactivity and also in interbeat interval reactivity, though only when disclosers were women, but not for respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity. Physiological synchrony was not consistently associated with other well-established trait and state measures of empathy. These findings identify the nuanced role of physiological synchrony in empathic responding to others' suffering. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-023-00210-4.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jaweria Qaiser
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
| | | | - Bonnie M. Le
- Department of Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY USA
| | - Amie M. Gordon
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI USA
| | - Emily A. Impett
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
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9
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Madden-Rusnak A, Micheletti M, Dominguez A, de Barbaro K. Spontaneous infant crying modulates vagal activity in real time. Dev Psychobiol 2023; 65:e22428. [PMID: 37860903 PMCID: PMC10754064 DOI: 10.1002/dev.22428] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2022] [Revised: 09/01/2023] [Accepted: 09/10/2023] [Indexed: 10/21/2023]
Abstract
Porges' polyvagal theory (1991) proposes that the activity of the vagal nerve modulates moment-by-moment changes in adaptive behavior during stress. However, most work, including research with infants, has only examined vagal changes at low temporal resolutions, averaging 30+ s across phases of structured stressor paradigms. Thus, the true timescale of vagal regulation-and the extent to which it can be observed during unprompted crying-is unknown. The current study utilized a recently validated method to calculate respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) dynamically at a high resolution of 5 Hz (updated every 200 ms) in a home-based infant study. Using an event-related analysis, we calculated the relative change in RSA around the onset of naturally occurring unprompted instances of n = 41 infants' 180 crying events. As predicted, RSA significantly decreased after the onset of crying compared to non-crying chance changes in RSA. Decreasing trends in RSA were driven by infants with higher pre-cry RSA values, infants rated lower in Negative Affectivity, and those rated both high and low in Orienting by their mothers. Our results display the timescale of RSA in spontaneous and naturalistic episodes of infant crying and that these dynamic RSA patterns are aligned with real-time levels of RSA and also caregiver-reported temperament.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Madden-Rusnak
- Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
| | - Megan Micheletti
- Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
| | - Alexis Dominguez
- Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
| | - Kaya de Barbaro
- Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
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10
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Capraz YZ, Konrad K, Reindl V. Concurrent and lagged physiological synchrony during mother-child interaction and their relationship to positive affect in 8- to 10-year-old children. Sci Rep 2023; 13:17744. [PMID: 37853034 PMCID: PMC10584844 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-43847-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2023] [Accepted: 09/28/2023] [Indexed: 10/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Mother-child interaction has been characterized by a fine-tuning of behavior and physiological activity. Yet, little is known about the dynamics of mother-child physiological synchrony during early school age and their associations to positive affect. To investigate these processes, 42 mother-child dyads, with children aged 8 to 10 years, played an interactive game while their interbeat intervals (IBI) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were measured simultaneously. IBI/RSA synchrony was calculated using cross-correlations of the IBI/RSA second-by-second time series for lags - 3 to + 3 seconds. Mother's and child's individual and shared positive affect were microcoded. During the interactive tasks, IBI and RSA synchrony significantly increased compared to control conditions. RSA and affect synchrony were significantly stronger for negative compared to positive lags indicating a stronger child leads/mother follows covariation. Further, dyad's IBI and RSA synchrony were significantly associated to mother's and child's individual positive affect. Our data suggest that in low-risk community samples, mothers may respond to their children's positive affect by matching their own affect and physiology. Investigating these temporally precise, concurrent and lagged synchrony processes may open up new avenues for understanding the ways in which parent-child interactions contribute to child developmental outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yasemin Zehra Capraz
- Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Kerstin Konrad
- Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
- JARA-Brain Institute II, Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, RWTH Aachen & Research Centre Juelich, Juelich, Germany
| | - Vanessa Reindl
- Child Neuropsychology Section, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
- JARA-Brain Institute II, Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, RWTH Aachen & Research Centre Juelich, Juelich, Germany.
- Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, S639818, Republic of Singapore.
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Flory S, Guglielmini S, Scholkmann F, Marcar VL, Wolf M. How our hearts beat together: a study on physiological synchronization based on a self-paced joint motor task. Sci Rep 2023; 13:11987. [PMID: 37491507 PMCID: PMC10368740 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-39083-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/12/2022] [Accepted: 07/20/2023] [Indexed: 07/27/2023] Open
Abstract
Cardiac physiological synchrony is regarded as an important component of social interaction due to its putative role in prosocial behaviour. Yet, the processes underlying physiological synchrony remain unclear. We aim to investigate these processes. 20 dyads (19 men, 21 women, age range 18-35) engaged in a self-paced interpersonal tapping synchronization task under different levels of tapping synchrony due to blocking of sensory communication channels. Applying wavelet transform coherence analysis, significant increases in heart rate synchronization from baseline to task execution were found with no statistically significant difference across conditions. Furthermore, the control analysis, which assessed synchrony between randomly combined dyads of participants showed no difference from the original dyads' synchrony. We showed that interindividual cardiac physiological synchrony during self-paced synchronized finger tapping resulted from a task-related stimulus equally shared by all individuals. We hypothesize that by applying mental effort to the task, individuals changed into a similar mental state, altering their cardiac regulation. This so-called psychophysiological mode provoked more uniform, less variable fluctuation patterns across all individuals leading to similar heart rate coherence independent of subsequent pairings. With this study, we provide new insights into cardiac physiological synchrony and highlight the importance of appropriate study design and control analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stephan Flory
- Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory, Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
| | - Sabino Guglielmini
- Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory, Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Felix Scholkmann
- Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory, Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Neurophotonics and Biosignal Processing Research Group, Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Institute of Complementary and Integrative Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Valentine L Marcar
- Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory, Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Comprehensive Cancer Center Zürich, University Hospital Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Martin Wolf
- Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory, Department of Neonatology, University Hospital Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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Fogel-Yaakobi S, Golland Y, Levit-Binnun N, Borelli JL, Mikulincer M, Shai D. The moderating role of attachment in the association between physiological synchrony in married couples and supportive behavior in the transition to parenthood. Psychophysiology 2023:e14263. [PMID: 36828778 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14263] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2021] [Revised: 01/03/2023] [Accepted: 01/09/2023] [Indexed: 02/26/2023]
Abstract
Despite supportive behaviors playing a central role in intimate relationships, the extent to which physiological and psychological factors are involved in the quality of the observed spousal support, remains largely unknown. From a physiological stance, cardiac synchrony has been identified as an important component involved in dyadic interpersonal interactions. This study aims to examine whether individual differences in attachment determine, at least to some extent, whether cardiac synchrony enhances or impedes the quality of the observed spousal support. Specifically, this study examines whether attachment style moderates the biobehavioral link between positive cardiac synchrony and observed spousal support. A total of 58 couples expecting their first child participated in a supportive interaction while their cardiovascular responses were recorded, and the quality of their caregiving behaviors was coded. Results indicated that couples' cardiovascular dynamics were synchronized during the supportive interaction. Furthermore, attachment moderated the association between positive cardiac synchrony and the behavioral manifestation of support, such that cardiac synchrony was negatively associated with the quality of support when offered by caregivers with higher scores of attachment anxiety. Our findings show that for those caregivers who have higher levels of anxious attachment-being synchronized with their care seeking spouses is associated with difficulties in providing effective support. We discuss these findings in the context of the emotion regulation difficulties characteristic of anxious attachment patterns. These findings suggest that future work could benefit from performing comprehensive studies that consider physiological, behavioral, and psychological constructs simultaneously.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Yulia Golland
- Ivcher School of Psychology, Reichman University (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya), Herzliya, Israel
| | - Nava Levit-Binnun
- Ivcher School of Psychology, Reichman University (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya), Herzliya, Israel
| | - Jessica L Borelli
- Department of Psychological Science, School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, California, USA
| | - Mario Mikulincer
- Ivcher School of Psychology, Reichman University (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya), Herzliya, Israel
| | - Dana Shai
- SEED Center, School of Psychology, The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Tel Aviv-Yaffo, Israel
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Biological sensitivity to context as a dyadic construct: An investigation of child-parent RSA synchrony among low-SES youth. Dev Psychopathol 2023; 35:95-108. [PMID: 36914289 DOI: 10.1017/s095457942100078x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Parenting behaviors are significantly linked to youths' behavioral adjustment, an association that is moderated by youths' and parents' self-regulation. The biological sensitivity to context theory suggests that respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) indexes youths' varying susceptibility to rearing contexts. However, self-regulation in the family context is increasingly viewed as a process of "coregulation" that is biologically embedded and involves dynamic Parent×Child interactions. No research thus far has examined physiological synchrony as a dyadic biological context that may moderate associations between parenting behaviors and preadolescent adjustment. Using a two-wave sample of 101 low-socioeconomic status (SES) families (children and caretakers; mean age 10.28 years), we employed multilevel modeling to examine dyadic coregulation during a conflict task, indicated by RSA synchrony, as a moderator of the linkages between observed parenting behaviors and preadolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems. Results showed that high dyadic RSA synchrony resulted in a multiplicative association between parenting and youth adjustment. High dyadic synchrony intensified the relations between parenting behaviors and youth behavior problems, such that in the context of high dyadic synchrony, positive and negative parenting behaviors were associated with decreased and increased behavioral problems, respectively. Parent-child dyadic RSA synchrony is discussed as a potential biomarker of biological sensitivity in youth.
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14
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Wolfe EC, Thompson AG, Brunyé TT, Davis FC, Grover D, Haga Z, Doyle T, Goyal A, Shaich H, Urry HL. Ultra-brief training in cognitive reappraisal or mindfulness reduces anxiety and improves motor performance efficiency under stress. ANXIETY, STRESS, AND COPING 2023:1-22. [PMID: 36625033 DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2022.2162890] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES We examined the effects of ultra-brief training in mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal on affective response and performance under stress. We hypothesized that one or both types of training would decrease affective responding and improve performance, and that these effects might be moderated by acute stress induction. DESIGN We manipulated training (mindfulness, cognitive reappraisal, control) between subjects and level of stress (low, high) within subjects in a 3 × 2 mixed factorial design. Method: Participants (N = 112, ages 18-35) completed two sessions on different days. In each session, they received mindfulness or cognitive reappraisal training or listened to a control script prior to a low- or high-stress simulated hostage situation. We measured motor performance efficiency (proportion of shots that hit hostile and hostage targets), affective responding (self-reported anxiety, salivary cortisol and alpha amylase, and autonomic physiology), and physical activity. RESULTS Compared to control instructions, ultra-brief training in cognitive reappraisal or mindfulness reduced subjective anxiety and increased performance efficiency. There were few effects of training on other measures. CONCLUSION Ultra-brief training in cognitive reappraisal or mindfulness prior to a stressful task may be both helpful and harmful; effects are preliminary and subject to boundary conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emma C Wolfe
- Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.,Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
| | - Andrew G Thompson
- Center for Initial Military Training, U. S. Army TRADOC, Fort Eustis, VA, USA.,Center for Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
| | - Tad T Brunyé
- Center for Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA.,Cognitive Science and Applications Team, U. S. Army DEVCOM Soldier Center, Natick, MA, USA
| | - F Caroline Davis
- Center for Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA.,Cognitive Science and Applications Team, U. S. Army DEVCOM Soldier Center, Natick, MA, USA.,The Human Connection Counseling Center, Sandpoint, ID, USA
| | - Daniel Grover
- Center for Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
| | - Zachary Haga
- Center for Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA.,Human-Robot Interaction Laboratory, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
| | - Thomas Doyle
- Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
| | - Anjali Goyal
- Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
| | - Hannah Shaich
- Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
| | - Heather L Urry
- Department of Psychology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA.,Center for Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
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15
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Miller JG, Armstrong-Carter E, Balter L, Lorah J. A meta-analysis of mother-child synchrony in respiratory sinus arrhythmia and contextual risk. Dev Psychobiol 2023; 65:e22355. [PMID: 36567655 DOI: 10.1002/dev.22355] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2022] [Revised: 10/08/2022] [Accepted: 11/02/2022] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
Biobehavioral frameworks of attachment posit that mother-child dyads engage in physiological synchrony that is uniquely formative for children's neurobiological, social, and emotional development. Much of the work on mother-child physiological synchrony has focused on respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). However, the strength of the existing evidence for mother-child RSA synchrony during interaction is unclear. Using meta-analysis, we summarized results from 12 eligible studies comprising 14 samples and 1201 children ranging from infancy to adolescence (Mage = 5.68 years, SD = 4.13, range = 0.4-17 years) and their mothers. We found that there was a statistically significant, albeit modest, positive within-dyad association between mother and child fluctuations in RSA. There also was evidence for significant heterogeneity across studies. Less mother-child RSA synchrony was observed in high-risk samples characterized by clinical difficulties, history of maltreatment, or socioeconomic disadvantage. We did not find that mother-child RSA synchrony significantly differed by task context, mean child age, or by epoch length for computing RSA. Collectively, these findings suggest that mother-child dyads show correspondence in their fluctuations in RSA, and that RSA synchrony is disrupted in high-risk contexts. Future directions and implications for the study of parent-child physiological synchrony are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonas G Miller
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.,Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA
| | | | - Leah Balter
- Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
| | - Julie Lorah
- Department of Education and Human Development, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA
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16
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Butler EA. Coordination in interpersonal systems. Cogn Emot 2022; 36:1467-1478. [PMID: 36856026 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2023.2168624] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/02/2023]
Abstract
Coordinated group behaviour can result in conflict or social cohesion. Thus having a better understanding of coordination in social groups could help us tackle some of our most challenging social problems. Historically, the most common way to study group behaviour is to break it down into sub-processes, such as cognition and emotion, then ideally manipulate them in a social context in order to predict some behaviour such as liking versus distrusting a target person. This approach has gotten us partway to understanding many important collective behaviours, but I argue that making major changes in the world will require a more integrated approach. In this review, I introduce dynamic systems theory, with a focus on interpersonal systems, where all the processes we typically study in individuals, such as cognition and emotion, become intertwined between social partners over time. I focus on the concept of coordination, defined as a temporal correlation between interacting components of a system (or systems) arising due to coupling between them. Finally, I show how this perspective could be used to guide investigations of social problems such as polarisation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily A Butler
- Family Studies & Human Development, College of Agriculture & Life Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
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17
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Measurement of interpersonal physiological synchrony in dyads: A review of timing parameters used in the literature. COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2022; 22:1215-1230. [PMID: 35556231 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-022-01011-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/02/2022] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
When individuals share interpersonal connections, such as the bond between a mother and child or between a therapist and their client, they often exhibit measurable coordination of some physiological response patterns during their interactions known as interpersonal physiological synchrony (IPS Butler, 2011; Palumbo et al., 2016; Tscacher & Meier, 2019). However, as there is no single definition of IPS in the literature, researchers across fields have not established a standardized method for its study. This paper outlines methodological considerations that researchers should take into account when designing studies of IPS. Due to the inherent temporal component of synchrony analyses, we direct particular focus to the issue of measurement timing. Synchrony is described across multiple physiological processes, including electrodermal skin activation, cardiac function, respiration, and neural oscillatory activity, and we make specific recommendations for each. Across physiological measures and analytic strategies, we recommend that when determining an experimental timeframe in which to isolate periods of dyadic IPS, researchers should account for the timing of both the biological systems of interest and the psychological processes theorized to underlie their activity in that particular context. In adopting this strategy, researchers can ensure that they capture all of the fluctuations associated with a psychological process of interest and can add to the growing body of literature examining physiological correlates of interpersonal bonds.
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18
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Zhang X, Gatzke-Kopp LM, Cole PM, Ram N. A dynamic systems account of parental self-regulation processes in the context of challenging child behavior. Child Dev 2022; 93:e501-e514. [PMID: 35635069 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13808] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
To advance the understanding of how parental self-regulation contributes to their role in supporting children's development, this study proposes a model of the dynamic processes involved in parental self-regulation. Based on time-series data from 157 mothers and their 30- to 60-month-old children (49.7% female; 96% White; data collected June 2017-December 2019 in central Pennsylvania, U.S.) during a challenging wait task, the model was tested by examining the temporal relations among challenging child behavior, maternal physiology, and maternal responsiveness. Results were consistent with the hypothesized dynamic negative feedback processes and revealed their associations with the overall quality of parenting behaviors and experiences. Findings elucidate how parents adapt to competing external (attending to child) and internal (restoring parents' equilibrium) demands during parenting challenges.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xutong Zhang
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Lisa M Gatzke-Kopp
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Pamela M Cole
- Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Nilam Ram
- Departments of Communication and Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
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19
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Gatzke-Kopp L, Zhang X, Creavey KL, Skowron EA. An event-based analysis of maternal physiological reactivity following aversive child behaviors. Psychophysiology 2022; 59:e14093. [PMID: 35567524 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14093] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2021] [Revised: 04/27/2022] [Accepted: 04/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Research investigating the association between parents' physiological reactivity and their ability to self-regulate in parenting contexts typically examines the average physiological response across the duration of a dyadic task, conflating reactivity across a multitude of parent and child behaviors. The present study utilized a moving-window analytical technique to generate a continuous, second × second time series of mothers' high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) to conduct an event-based analysis of maternal reactivity in the 10 s following an aversive child event. Analyses examined whether maternal reactivity related to parenting behaviors similarly among maltreating (n = 48) and non-maltreating (n = 29) mother-preschooler dyads. Results indicate that maternal behavior was not associated with average HF-HRV reactivity, but mothers who demonstrated an increase in HF-HRV immediately following a negative child event were more likely to engage in behaviors to return the dyad to a positive state. Findings were specific to incidents of negative child behavior, and results were not moderated by maltreatment status. These results highlight the value of using an event-based design to isolate reactivity in response to targeted events to understand how physiological reactivity supports parenting.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa Gatzke-Kopp
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Xutong Zhang
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Kristine L Creavey
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.,School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
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20
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Constantin KL, Moline RL, Pillai Riddell R, Spence JR, Fiacconi CM, Lupo‐Flewelling K, McMurtry CM. Parent and child self‐ and co‐regulation during pediatric venipuncture: Exploring heart rate variability and the effects of a mindfulness intervention. Dev Psychobiol 2022; 64:e22277. [DOI: 10.1002/dev.22277] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2021] [Revised: 02/25/2022] [Accepted: 03/20/2022] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Rachel L. Moline
- Department of Psychology University of Guelph Guelph Ontario Canada
| | - Rebecca Pillai Riddell
- Department of Psychology York University Toronto Ontario Canada
- Department of Psychiatry Research The Hospital for Sick Children Toronto Ontario Canada
- Department of Psychiatry University of Toronto Toronto Ontario Canada
| | | | | | | | - C. Meghan McMurtry
- Department of Psychology University of Guelph Guelph Ontario Canada
- Pediatric Chronic Pain Program McMaster Children's Hospital Hamilton Ontario Canada
- Department of Paediatrics, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry Western University London Ontario Canada
- Department of Anesthesia McMaster University Hamilton Ontario Canada
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21
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Chen KH, Casey JJ, Connelly DE, Merrilees J, Yang CM, Miller BL, Levenson RW. Lower activity linkage between caregivers and persons with neurodegenerative diseases is associated with greater caregiver anxiety. Psychophysiology 2022; 59:e14040. [PMID: 35315937 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14040] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2021] [Revised: 10/24/2021] [Accepted: 12/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Physiological linkage refers to the degree to which two individuals' central/peripheral physiological activities change in coordinated ways. Previous research has focused primarily on linkage in the autonomic nervous system in laboratory settings, particularly examining how linkage is associated with social behavior and relationship quality. In this study, we examined how linkage in couples' daily somatic activity (e.g., synchronized movement measured from wrist sensors)-another important aspect of peripheral physiology-was associated with relationship quality and mental health. We focused on persons with neurodegenerative diseases (PWNDs) and their spousal caregivers, whose linkage might have direct implications for the PWND-caregiver relationship and caregiver's health. Twenty-two PWNDs and their caregivers wore wristwatch actigraphy devices that provided continuous measurement of activity over 7 days at home. PWND-caregiver activity linkage was quantified by the degree to which activity was "in-phase" or "anti-phase" linked (i.e., coordinated changes in the same or opposite direction) during waking hours, computed by correlating minute-by-minute activity levels averaged using a 10-min rolling window. Caregivers completed well-validated surveys that assessed their mental health (including anxiety and depression) and relationship quality with the PWND. We found that lower in-phase activity linkage, but not anti-phase linkage, was associated with higher caregiver anxiety. These dyad-level effects were robust, remaining significant after adjusting for somatic activity at the individual level. No effects were found for caregiver depression or relationship quality. These findings suggest activity linkage and wearables may be useful for day-by-day monitoring of vulnerable populations such as family caregivers. We offered several possible explanations for our findings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kuan-Hua Chen
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - James J Casey
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - Dyan E Connelly
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - Jennifer Merrilees
- Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
| | - Chien-Ming Yang
- Department of Psychology/The Research Center for Mind, Brain & Leaning, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
| | - Bruce L Miller
- Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
| | - Robert W Levenson
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
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22
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Meteier Q, De Salis E, Capallera M, Widmer M, Angelini L, Abou Khaled O, Sonderegger A, Mugellini E. Relevant Physiological Indicators for Assessing Workload in Conditionally Automated Driving, Through Three-Class Classification and Regression. FRONTIERS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE 2022. [DOI: 10.3389/fcomp.2021.775282] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
In future conditionally automated driving, drivers may be asked to take over control of the car while it is driving autonomously. Performing a non-driving-related task could degrade their takeover performance, which could be detected by continuous assessment of drivers' mental load. In this regard, three physiological signals from 80 subjects were collected during 1 h of conditionally automated driving in a simulator. Participants were asked to perform a non-driving cognitive task (N-back) for 90 s, 15 times during driving. The modality and difficulty of the task were experimentally manipulated. The experiment yielded a dataset of drivers' physiological indicators during the task sequences, which was used to predict drivers' workload. This was done by classifying task difficulty (three classes) and regressing participants' reported level of subjective workload after each task (on a 0–20 scale). Classification of task modality was also studied. For each task, the effect of sensor fusion and task performance were studied. The implemented pipeline consisted of a repeated cross validation approach with grid search applied to three machine learning algorithms. The results showed that three different levels of mental load could be classified with a f1-score of 0.713 using the skin conductance and respiration signals as inputs of a random forest classifier. The best regression model predicted the subjective level of workload with a mean absolute error of 3.195 using the three signals. The accuracy of the model increased with participants' task performance. However, classification of task modality (visual or auditory) was not successful. Some physiological indicators such as estimates of respiratory sinus arrhythmia, respiratory amplitude, and temporal indices of heart rate variability were found to be relevant measures of mental workload. Their use should be preferred for ongoing assessment of driver workload in automated driving.
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23
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Fry CM, Ram N, Gatzke-Kopp LM. Integrating dynamic and developmental time scales: Emotion-specific autonomic coordination predicts baseline functioning over time. Int J Psychophysiol 2021; 171:29-37. [PMID: 34906622 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2021.12.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2021] [Revised: 10/25/2021] [Accepted: 12/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Autonomic nervous system activity flexibly shifts and modulates behavior at multiple time scales, with some work suggesting that patterns of short-term reactivity contribute to long-term developmental change. However, previous work has largely considered sympathetic and parasympathetic systems independently, even though both systems contribute dynamically to the regulation of physiological arousal. Using physiological data obtained from 313 children in kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade we examined whether within-person autonomic coordination during an emotion-inducing film task in kindergarten was associated with developmental change in resting autonomic activity. On average, these kindergarteners exhibited reciprocal coordination during the approach-oriented emotion (angry, happy) condition and a lack of coordination during the avoidance-oriented emotion (fear, sad) condition. Alignment with these patterns was associated with more typical autonomic development, specifically an increase in resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and a decrease in resting skin conductance (SCR) from kindergarten to 2nd grade; while lack of coordination during the approach condition was associated with a relatively delayed increase in resting RSA and a steeper decline in SCR, and reciprocal coordination during the avoidance condition was associated with a lack of RSA increase. Findings highlight the need for additional consideration of how moment-to-moment dynamics of autonomic coordination influence longer-term development, and suggest that early patterns of atypical arousal may portend dysregulation of developing physiological systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cassidy M Fry
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, 115 Health & Human Development Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
| | - Nilam Ram
- Departments of Psychology and Communication, Stanford University, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 120, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
| | - Lisa M Gatzke-Kopp
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, 115 Health & Human Development Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
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24
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Chen KH, Brown CL, Wells JL, Rothwell ES, Otero M, Levenson RW, Fredrickson BL. Physiological linkage during shared positive and shared negative emotion. J Pers Soc Psychol 2021; 121:1029-1056. [PMID: 32897091 PMCID: PMC8261768 DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000337] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Physiological linkage refers to the degree to which peoples' physiological responses change in coordinated ways. Here, we examine whether and how physiological linkage relates to incidents of shared emotion, distinguished by valence. Past research has used an "overall average" approach and characterized how physiological linkage over relatively long time periods (e.g., 10-15 min) reflects psychological and social processes (e.g., marital satisfaction, empathy). Here, we used a "momentary" approach and characterized whether physiological linkage over relatively short time periods (i.e., 15 s) reflects shared positive emotion, shared negative emotion, or both, and whether linkage during shared emotions relates to relational functioning. Married couples (156 dyads) had a 15-min conflict conversation in the laboratory. Using behavioral coding, each second of conversation was classified into 1 of 4 emotion categories: shared positive emotion, shared negative emotion, shared neutral emotion, or unshared emotion. Using a composite of 3 peripheral physiological measures (i.e., heart rate, skin conductance, finger pulse amplitude), we computed momentary in-phase and antiphase linkage to represent coordinated changes in the same or opposite direction, respectively. We found that shared positive emotion was associated with higher in-phase and lower antiphase linkage, relative to the other 3 emotion categories. Greater in-phase physiological linkage during shared positive emotion was also consistently associated with higher-quality interactions and relationships, both concurrently and longitudinally (i.e., 5 to 6 years later). These findings advance our understanding of the nature of physiological linkage, the emotional conditions under which it occurs, and its possible associations with relational functioning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
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Affiliation(s)
- Kuan-Hua Chen
- Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
| | - Casey L. Brown
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
| | - Jenna L. Wells
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
| | - Emily S. Rothwell
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
| | - Marcela Otero
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
- Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Centers, VA Palo Alto Health Care System
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University
| | - Robert W. Levenson
- Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
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25
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Hu Y, McElwain NL, Berry D. Mother-child mutually responsive orientation and real-time physiological coordination. Dev Psychobiol 2021; 63:e22200. [PMID: 34674236 DOI: 10.1002/dev.22200] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2021] [Revised: 08/06/2021] [Accepted: 09/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Abstract
From a biobehavioral framework, mother-child physiological and behavioral coordination are interdependent processes that contribute to children's socioemotional development. Little is known, however, about the temporal pattern of real-time physiological coordination or its associations with global levels of mother-child behavioral coordination. We addressed these gaps using data from 110 mothers and their preschool-aged children (56 girls, Mage = 53.63 months, SD = 7.74) across two play tasks (i.e., puzzle, pretend play). Using indices of maternal and child parasympathetic response (i.e., changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) across 15-s epochs, we tested the extent to which within-dyad physiological coordination was contingent on mutually responsive orientation (MRO; a global composite of behavioral coordination and shared positive affect assessed via observer ratings across each play task). Results from a series of two-level coupled autoregressive models indicated that MRO moderated mother-lead RSA coordination, and this pattern emerged across both play tasks. Controlling for stability of within-person RSA changes, increases in maternal RSA at time t - 1 predicted increases in children's RSA at time t, but only for dyads averaging higher MRO during play. No interactions of MRO emerged for child-lead RSA coordination. Findings highlight the importance of dyadic behavioral processes for mother-child physiological coordination.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yannan Hu
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA
| | - Nancy L McElwain
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.,The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA
| | - Daniel Berry
- Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
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26
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Highlander A, Zachary C, Jenkins K, Loiselle R, McCall M, Youngstrom J, McKee LG, Forehand R, Jones DJ. Clinical Presentation and Treatment of Early-Onset Behavior Disorders: The Role of Parent Emotion Regulation, Emotion Socialization, and Family Income. Behav Modif 2021; 46:1047-1074. [PMID: 34378434 PMCID: PMC9364231 DOI: 10.1177/01454455211036001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Parent emotion regulation and socialization have been linked to various aspects
of child functioning. In the case of early-onset behavior disorders in
particular, parent emotion regulation may be an important correlate of the
coercive cycle implicated in early-onset behavior disorders thus, symptom
presentation at baseline. Further, emotion socialization may be complicated by a
pattern of parent-child interactions in which both supportive or unsupportive
parenting behaviors in response to behavioral dysregulation may increase
vulnerability for problem behavior in the future. Some work suggests standard
Behavioral Parent Training may impact parent emotion regulation and
socialization. Still little is known, however, about how such processes may vary
by family income, which is critical given the overrepresentation of low-income
children in statistics on early-onset behavior disorders. This study explored
parent emotion regulation, socialization, and family income in a sample of
socioeconomically diverse treatment-seeking families of young (3–8 years old)
children. Findings suggest relations between parental emotion regulation,
socialization, and child behavior although the pattern of associations differed
at baseline and post-treatment and varied by family income. Clinical
implications and future directions are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- April Highlander
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | | | - Kaeley Jenkins
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Raelyn Loiselle
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Madison McCall
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | | | | | | | - Deborah J Jones
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
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27
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Somers JA, Luecken LJ, McNeish D, Lemery-Chalfant K, Spinrad TL. Second-by-second infant and mother emotion regulation and coregulation processes. Dev Psychopathol 2021; 34:1-14. [PMID: 34210378 PMCID: PMC8720330 DOI: 10.1017/s0954579421000389] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
Abstract
Context-appropriate infant physiological functioning may support emotion regulation and mother-infant emotion coregulation. Among a sample of 210 low-income Mexican-origin mothers and their 24-week-old infants, dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM) was used to examine whether within-infant vagal functioning accounted for between-dyad differences in within-dyad second-by-second emotion regulation and coregulation during free play. Vagal functioning was captured by within-infant mean and variability (standard deviation) of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during free play. Infant emotion regulation was quantified as emotional equilibria (within-person mean), volatility (within-person deviation from equilibrium), carryover (how quickly equilibrium is restored following a disturbance), and feedback loops (the extent to which prior affect dampens or amplifies subsequent affect) in positive and negative affect during free play; coregulation was quantified as the influence of one partner's affect on the other's subsequent affect. Among infants with lower RSA variability, positive affect fluctuated around a higher equilibrium, and negative affect fluctuated around a lower equilibrium; these infants exhibited feedback loops where their positive affect dampened their subsequent negative affect. As expected, infants with higher mean RSA exhibited more volatility in positive affect, feedback loops between their positive and negative affect, and stronger mother-driven emotion coregulation. The results highlight differences in simultaneously occurring biological and emotion regulation.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Linda J Luecken
- Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - Daniel McNeish
- Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | | | - Tracy L Spinrad
- School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
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28
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Association Between Dynamic Parasympathetic Reactivity to Frustration and Children's Social Success with Peers in Kindergarten. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol 2021; 49:1537-1549. [PMID: 34213718 DOI: 10.1007/s10802-021-00844-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/25/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
The inability to regulate affective arousal in the context of frustration may jeopardize children's ability to form successful friendships, especially as new peer groups are formed during the transition to kindergarten. While substantial research has utilized teacher reports of children's socioemotional behavior, there is less empirical evidence on the peer perspective. The present study utilized data from n = 235 kindergarteners (54% high in disruptive behavior) recruited for a multicomponent intervention. We examined whether physiological reactivity to frustration was associated with children's social success. Peer nominations of liking or disliking to play with the child were used to compute a social preference score, where negative values reflect greater rejection than acceptance. Multilevel growth modeling was employed to capture changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity across a manipulated inhibitory control task administered in 3 blocks, with differing algorithms embedded to induce affect: points were earned in the 1st and 3rd blocks (reward) and lost during the 2nd block (frustration). Groups did not differ in RSA reactivity during the 1st block, but children who experience greater peer rejection showed significant decreases in RSA (increases in arousal) across frustration. This increased arousal persisted across the 3rd block despite the reinstatement of reward, indicating a greater degree of reactivity and a lack of recovery relative to peer-accepted children. Teacher screenings of disruptive behavior only partially aligned with peer ratings of acceptance, highlighting the benefits of leveraging peer report to capture regulatory functioning and identify children for intervention recruitment.
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29
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Somers JA, Curci SG, Winstone LK, Luecken LJ. Within-mother variability in vagal functioning and concurrent socioemotional dysregulation. Psychophysiology 2021; 58:e13855. [PMID: 34080710 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13855] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2020] [Revised: 05/05/2021] [Accepted: 05/10/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
During dyadic interactions, well-regulated autonomic responses may support and be supported by socioemotional regulation, whereas autonomic responses that are inappropriate for the social context may be linked with socioemotional dysregulation. We evaluated women's parasympathetic and socioemotional responses during playful interaction with their 24-week-old infants, hypothesizing that insufficient or excessive variability in second-by-second vagal functioning would be associated with concurrent socioemotional dysregulation. Among a sample of 322 low-income, Mexican origin mothers (Mage = 27.8; SD = 6.5 years), variability in second-by-second vagal functioning was indexed by within-mother standard deviation (SD) in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during a 5-min unstructured play task. A latent construct of socioemotional dysregulation was identified using factor analyses. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate linear and quadratic relations between within-mother SD of RSA and concurrent socioemotional dysregulation. Analyses revealed a positively accelerated relationship between within-mother SD of RSA and concurrent maternal socioemotional dysregulation during play with her infant. Within-mother SD of RSA during a non-interactive baseline task was not related to maternal dysregulation. The results illustrate mothers' dynamic autonomic and socioemotional responses are intertwined during real-time interactions with her infant and lend support for the discriminant validity of within-mother SD of RSA during free play.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sarah G Curci
- Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - Laura K Winstone
- Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - Linda J Luecken
- Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
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Han SC, Baucom B, Timmons AC, Margolin G. A Systematic Review of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia in Romantic Relationships. FAMILY PROCESS 2021; 60:441-456. [PMID: 33724463 PMCID: PMC8406683 DOI: 10.1111/famp.12644] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an index of the parasympathetic nervous system, has recently gained attention as a physiological component of regulatory processes, social connectedness, and health. Within the context of romantic relationships, studies have operationalized and conceptualized RSA in disparate ways, obscuring a clear pattern of findings. This systematic review synthesizes the rapidly developing literature and clarifies the role of RSA in romantic relationships. We evaluate support for three conceptual hypotheses: (1) resting baseline RSA is associated with better quality relationships; (2) phasic RSA is reflective of changes in threat and connection during couple interactions; and (3) physiological linkage in RSA between romantic partners relates to positive or negative relationship functioning depending on the nature of the linkage (e.g., in-phase vs. antiphase). We identified 26 empirical studies that tested associations between RSA and an index of romantic relationships (i.e., relationship satisfaction). Our findings show that higher RSA is not uniformly "good" for relationships. Higher resting baseline RSA was contemporaneously associated with better quality relationships, yet higher baseline RSA was also unexpectedly associated with relationship violence. Short-term decreases in RSA were found during relationship conflict, though the opposite-phasic increases in RSA during positive romantic partner interactions-was not found due to mixed empirical support. As expected, evidence for RSA linkage was found, though the connection between linkage and relationship functioning depends on the context in which it was measured. We discuss methodological limitations and directions for future research.
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Mayo O, Lavidor M, Gordon I. Interpersonal autonomic nervous system synchrony and its association to relationship and performance - a systematic review and meta-analysis. Physiol Behav 2021; 235:113391. [PMID: 33744259 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113391] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2020] [Revised: 03/09/2021] [Accepted: 03/17/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Interpersonal physiological synchrony is the spontaneous temporal coordination of physiological processes between several individuals. This type of synchrony is critical for human relationships, as it promotes two important outcomes: the quality of the relationships between synchronized individuals, and how well synchronized individuals perform together. Nonetheless a clear estimation of the size of the correlations between interpersonal physiological synchrony and relationship or performance outcomes is missing. To address this gap in knowledge was the main goal of the current meta-analysis. We focused on interpersonal physiological synchrony in measures of autonomic nervous system activity, and specifically we examined the distinct branches of the autonomic nervous system. We conducted two meta-analyses: (1) Estimating the association between interpersonal physiological synchrony and relationship outcomes (2) Estimating the association between interpersonal physiological synchrony and performance outcomes. In the first meta-analysis (i.e., relationships), the overall estimated correlation was small with a marginal significance (ES=0.09, p>.10) and high heterogeneity (I2=76.0%). In further sub-group analysis, we discovered a positive relationship for measures of sympathetic synchrony (ES=0.19, p=.02), a negative relationship for measures of parasympathetic synchrony(ES=-0.21, p=.03), and a positive relationship for measures of combined sympathetic and parasympathetic synchrony (ES =0.16, p=.02). As for the second meta-analysis (i.e., performance), the overall effect size of correlation was small (ES=0.26, p<.01) and heterogeneous (I2=52.7%). Our results emphasize the small effect sizes of the correlations between physiological synchrony and performance or relational outcomes, as well as the differential effects for synchrony in sympathetic versus parasympathetic activity. Combined with the high heterogeneity, our results point to the need for a rigorous a-priori scientific approach which distinguishes between different types of physiological synchrony.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oded Mayo
- Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
| | - Michal Lavidor
- Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel; The Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
| | - Ilanit Gordon
- Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel; The Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel.
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A method for measuring dynamic respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in infants and mothers. Infant Behav Dev 2021; 63:101569. [PMID: 33964788 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101569] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2020] [Revised: 04/15/2021] [Accepted: 04/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
The measurement of respiratory sinus arrythmia (RSA) in infants, children and adults is critical to the study of physiological regulation, and more recently, interpersonal physiological covariation, but it has been impeded by methods that limit its resolution to 30 s or longer. Recent analytical developments have suggested methods for studying dynamic RSA in adults, and we have extended this work to the study of infants and mothers. In the current paper, we describe a new analytical strategy for estimating RSA time series for infants and adults. Our new method provides a means for studying physiological synchrony in infant-mother dyads that offers some important advantages relative to existing methods that use inter-beat-intervals (e.g. Feldman, Magori-Cohen, Galili, Singer, & Louzoun, 2011). In the middle sections of this paper, we offer a brief tutorial on calculating RSA continuously with a sliding window and review the empirical evidence for determining the optimal window size. In order to confirm the reliability of our results, we briefly discuss testing synchrony by randomly shuffling the dyads to control for spurious correlations, and also by using a bootstrapping technique for calculating confidence intervals in the cross-correlation function. One important implication that emerges from applying this method is that it is possible to measure both positive and negative physiological synchrony and that these categorical measures are differentially predictive of future outcomes.
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Somers JA, Curci SG, Luecken LJ. Quantifying the dynamic nature of vagal responsivity in infancy: Methodological innovations and theoretical implications. Dev Psychobiol 2021; 63:582-588. [PMID: 32662127 PMCID: PMC7928168 DOI: 10.1002/dev.v63.3 10.1002/dev.22018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2019] [Revised: 06/15/2020] [Accepted: 06/21/2020] [Indexed: 08/22/2023]
Abstract
According to polyvagal theory, rapid modulation of the vagal brake develops early in infancy and supports social interactions. Despite being viewed as a dynamic system, researchers typically assess vagal regulation using global measures of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; an index of vagal tone). This study sought to capture the dynamic property of RSA and evaluate individual differences in within-infant RSA responsivity during mother-infant interaction. RSA was evaluated in a sample of 135 6-month-old Mexican-American infants during a 5-min free play task. Mothers reported on their children's behavioral problems and competence at 18 months using the Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment. Time-varying estimates of infant RSA during the interaction were obtained using a multiple window technique and spectrogram analysis. Using structural equation modeling, we evaluated whether within-infant SD of RSA predicted infants' behavioral problems and competence at 18 months, after adjusting for infants' mean RSA and covariates. Greater within-infant SD of RSA predicted more behavior problems at 18 months. This study demonstrates that assessing intra-individual variability in RSA, or the extent to which infants fluctuate around their average level of RSA during a task, enhances our ability to test polyvagal theory's central tenet: vagal regulation supports well-regulated social interaction.
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Distefano R, Grenell A, Palmer AR, Houlihan K, Masten AS, Carlson SM. Self-regulation as promotive for academic achievement in young children across risk contexts. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2021; 58. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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Ravindran N, Zhang X, Green LM, Gatzke-Kopp LM, Cole PM, Ram N. Concordance of mother-child respiratory sinus arrythmia is continually moderated by dynamic changes in emotional content of film stimuli. Biol Psychol 2021; 161:108053. [PMID: 33617928 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108053] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2020] [Revised: 01/20/2021] [Accepted: 02/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Evidence suggests that concordance between parent and child physiological states is an important marker of interpersonal interaction. However, studies have focused on individual differences in concordance, and we have limited understanding of how physiological concordance may vary dynamically based on the situational context. We examined whether mother-child physiological concordance was moderated by dynamic changes in emotional content of a film clip they viewed together. Second-by-second estimates of respiratory sinus arrythmia were obtained from mothers and children (N = 158, Mchild age = 45.16 months) as they viewed a chase scene from a children's film. In addition, the film clip's negative emotional content was rated second-by-second. Results showed that mother-child dyads displayed positive physiological concordance only in seconds when there was an increase in the clip's negative emotional content. Thus, dynamic changes in mother-child physiological concordance may indicate dyadic responses to challenge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Niyantri Ravindran
- Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, United States.
| | - Xutong Zhang
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, United States
| | - Lindsey M Green
- Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Lisa M Gatzke-Kopp
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, United States
| | - Pamela M Cole
- Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, United States
| | - Nilam Ram
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, United States
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Kiel EJ, Phelps RA, Brooker RJ. Maternal dynamic respiratory sinus arrhythmia during toddlers' interactions with novelty. INFANCY 2021; 26:388-408. [PMID: 33590694 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12392] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2020] [Revised: 10/05/2020] [Accepted: 01/20/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Maternal psychophysiological responses to toddlers' distress to novelty may have important implications for parenting during early childhood that are relevant to children's eventual development of social withdrawal and anxiety. Likely, these responses depend on intrapersonal, interpersonal, and contextual factors. The current study investigated the time course of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) across two laboratory novelty episodes, one low threat and one moderate threat, in 120 mothers of 2-year-old toddlers. Growth models tested context differences in and correlates of dynamic patterns of RSA. Dynamic patterns differed between tasks and according to mothers' perceptions of and distress about toddler shyness. Thus, changes in mothers' RSA across toddlers' interactions with novelty seem to depend on the context as well as how mothers perceive and respond to their toddlers' shyness.
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Li X, Kuelz A, Boyd S, August K, Markey C, Butler E. Exploring Physiological Linkage in Same-Sex Male Couples. Front Psychol 2021; 11:619255. [PMID: 33536984 PMCID: PMC7848119 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.619255] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2020] [Accepted: 12/17/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
We explore physiological linkage (i.e., covariation of physiological channels between interacting partners; PL) among 34 same-sex male couples. Interbeat interval, an indicator of cardiovascular arousal, was collected across four conversational contexts in the lab: (1) a baseline period that did not involve conversation, (2) a conversation about body image, (3) a conversation about health goals, and (4) a recovery period that allowed for unstructured conversation. We used a newly developed R statistical package (i.e., rties; Butler and Barnard, 2019) that simplifies the use of dynamic models for investigating interpersonal emotional processes. We identified two different PL patterns: (1) a simple one that was characterized by stable synchronization and low frequency of oscillation; and (2) a complex one that was characterized by drifting synchronization, high frequency of oscillation, and eventual damping. Guided by social baseline theory and the reactive flexibility perspective, we explored the interactions between couple relationship functioning (i.e., love, conflict, commitment, sexual satisfaction, and relationship length) and conversational context as predictors of the PL patterns. The results suggest that partners in well-functioning relationships and emotionally challenging situations may be especially likely to show complex PL patterns that may reflect (or support) coregulatory processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaomin Li
- Department of Family Studies and Human Development, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States
| | - Ashley Kuelz
- Department of Family Studies and Human Development, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States
| | - Savannah Boyd
- Department of Psychology, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States
| | - Kristin August
- Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, United States
| | - Charlotte Markey
- Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, United States
| | - Emily Butler
- Department of Family Studies and Human Development, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States
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Addressing educational inequalities and promoting learning through studies of stress physiology in elementary school students. Dev Psychopathol 2021; 32:1899-1913. [PMID: 33427176 DOI: 10.1017/s0954579420001443] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
To be ready to learn, children need to be focused, engaged, and able to bounce back from setbacks. However, many children come to school with heightened or diminished physiological arousal due to exposure to poverty-related risks. While stress physiology plays a role in explaining how adversity relates to processes that support students' cognitive development, there is a lack of studies of physiological stress response in educational settings. This review integrates relevant studies and offers future directions for research on the role of stress physiology in the school adaptation of elementary school students, focusing on these important questions: (a) What are the links between physiological stress response and learning-related skills and behaviors, and do they vary as a function of proximal and distal experiences outside of school? (b) How are school experiences associated with students' physiological stress response and related cognitive and behavioral adaptations? (c) How can we leverage measures of students' physiological stress response in evaluations of school-based interventions to better support the school success of every student? We hope to stimulate a new wave of research that will advance the science of developmental stress physiology, as well as improve the application of these findings in educational policy and practice.
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A systematic review of caregiver-child physiological synchrony across systems: Associations with behavior and child functioning. Dev Psychopathol 2021; 32:1754-1777. [PMID: 33427185 DOI: 10.1017/s0954579420001236] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Extensive research has established a positive association between caregiver-child behavioral synchrony and child developmental functioning. Burgeoning research examining physiological synchrony has yet to elucidate its impact for children's developing self-regulation. The objectives of this systematic review were to: 1) determine whether there is evidence that caregiver-child physiological synchrony promotes positive child development, 2) examine developmental differences in physiological synchrony and its correlates, and 3) explore whether context, risk, and/or stress influence patterns of synchrony. Sixty-nine studies met the following criteria on PubMed and PsycINFO: 1) peer-reviewed empirical articles in English that 2) examine autonomic, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical, and/or central nervous system activity 3) for caregivers and children 4) in response to a task and 5) directly examine the association between caregiver and child physiology. Findings varied based on developmental period and current behavioral context. Functional differences may exist across physiological systems and contexts. Synchrony may have different developmental consequences for dyads with and without certain risk factors. Few studies examine physiological synchrony across multiple systems or contexts, nor do they measure child characteristics associated with synchrony. Statistical and methodological challenges impede interpretation. Findings generally support the idea that physiological synchrony may support children's developing self-regulation. Longitudinal research is needed to examine child developmental outcomes over time.
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Motsan S, Bar-Kalifa E, Yirmiya K, Feldman R. Physiological and social synchrony as markers of PTSD and resilience following chronic early trauma. Depress Anxiety 2021; 38:89-99. [PMID: 33107687 DOI: 10.1002/da.23106] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2020] [Revised: 09/01/2020] [Accepted: 10/02/2020] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Although resilience is a key topic in clinical theory and research, few studies focused on biobehavioral mechanisms that underpin resilience. Guided by the biobehavioral synchrony frame, we examined the dynamic interplay of physiological and behavioral synchrony as marker of risk and resilience in trauma-exposed youth. METHODS A unique cohort of war-exposed versus control children was followed at four time-points from early childhood to preadolescence and child posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) repeatedly assessed. At preadolescence (11-13 years), mother and child were observed in several social and nonsocial tasks while cardiac data collected and measures of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and RSA synchrony computed. The social interactive task was microcoded for behavioral synchrony and the second-by-second balance of behavioral and physiological synchrony was calculated. War-exposed preadolescents were divided into those diagnosed with PTSD at any time-point across childhood versus resilient children. RESULTS Group differences in behavioral synchrony, RSA synchrony, and their interplay emerged. PTSD dyads exhibited the tightest autonomic synchrony combined with the lowest behavioral synchrony, whereas resilient dyads displayed the highest behavioral and lowest autonomic synchrony. Hierarchical Linear Model analysis pinpointed two resilience-promoting mechanisms. First, for resilient and control dyads, moments of behavioral synchrony were coupled with decreased RSA synchrony. Second, only among resilient dyads, moments of behavioral synchrony increased child RSA levels. CONCLUSION Findings specify mechanisms by which biobehavioral synchrony promotes resilience. As children grow, the tightly coupled mother-child physiology must be replaced by loosely coordinated behavioral attunement that buttresses maturation of the child's allostatic self-regulation. Our findings highlight the need for synchrony-based interventions to trauma-exposed mothers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shai Motsan
- Interdisciplinary Center, Herzlia, Israel.,Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | | | - Karen Yirmiya
- Interdisciplinary Center, Herzlia, Israel.,Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
| | - Ruth Feldman
- Interdisciplinary Center, Herzlia, Israel.,Yale University Child Study Center, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
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Coutinho J, Pereira A, Oliveira-Silva P, Meier D, Lourenço V, Tschacher W. When our hearts beat together: Cardiac synchrony as an entry point to understand dyadic co-regulation in couples. Psychophysiology 2020; 58:e13739. [PMID: 33355941 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13739] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2020] [Revised: 10/29/2020] [Accepted: 11/10/2020] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
The degree to which romantic partners' autonomic responses are coordinated, represented by their pattern of physiological synchrony, seems to capture important aspects of the reciprocal influence and co-regulation between spouses. In this study, we analyzed couple's cardiac synchrony as measured by heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). A sample of 27 couples (N = 54) performed a structured interaction task in the lab where they discussed positive and negative aspects of the relationship. During the interaction, their cardiac measures (HR and HRV) were recorded using the BIOPAC System. Additional assessment, prior to the lab interaction task, included self-report measures of empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index and Interpersonal Reactivity Index for Couples) and relationship satisfaction (Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale). Synchrony computation was based on the windowed cross-correlation of both partner's HR and HRV time series. In order to control for random synchrony, surrogate controls were created using segment-wise shuffling. Our results confirmed the presence of cardiac synchrony during the couple's interaction when compared to surrogate testing. Specifically, we found evidence for negative (antiphase) synchrony of couple's HRV and positive (in-phase) synchrony of HR. Further, both HRV and HR synchronies were associated with several dimensions of self-report data. This study suggests that cardiac synchrony, particularly, the direction of the covariation in the partners' physiological time series, may have an important relational meaning in the context of marital interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana Coutinho
- Psychological Neuroscience Laboratory, CIPSI, Psychology School, University of Minho University, Braga, Portugal
| | - Alfredo Pereira
- CIPSI, Psychology School, University of Minho University, Braga, Portugal
| | - Patrícia Oliveira-Silva
- Human Neurobehavioral Laboratory, CEDH-Research Centre for Human Development, Faculdade de Educação e Psicologia, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal
| | - Deborah Meier
- University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Vladimiro Lourenço
- CIPSI, Psychology School, University of Minho University, Braga, Portugal
| | - Wolfgang Tschacher
- University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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Balderrama-Durbin C, Wang BA, Barden E, Kennedy S, Ergas D, Poole LZ. Reactivity and recovery in romantic relationships following a trauma analog: Examination of respiratory sinus arrhythmia in community couples. Psychophysiology 2020; 58:e13721. [PMID: 33169844 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13721] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2020] [Revised: 09/27/2020] [Accepted: 09/29/2020] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Emotion regulation has important implications for individual and relationship health. Psychophysiological responses, such as respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), can serve as a key indicator of emotion regulation processes subsequent to a stressor and may be the process by which couples confer health benefits. Moreover, partners in romantic relationships can mutually impact physiological states both during times of stress and times of support. The current study examined physiological reactivity through RSA during a laboratory stress-induction (i.e., stressful-film trauma analog) and recovery within the context of a romantic relationship. Sex, relationship health, and individual mental health indicators were examined as moderators of reactivity and recovery. Forty-five (n = 90 individuals) community couples, primarily White (n = 75, 83.3%), heterosexual (n = 63, 70.0%), and dating (n = 67, 74.4%), were examined. Both partners' RSA were measured continuously through a series of baseline tasks, a stressful-film task, and a post-film interaction task. Reactivity and recovery trajectories were moderated by sex, study task (i.e., baseline, film, and post-film), and individual mental health (ps < .05). Repeated-measures actor partner interdependence modeling analyses revealed a strong self-regulatory (i.e., actor) effect across all tasks as well as co-regulation (i.e., partner effects) during the post-film interaction task. Findings provided some evidence of stress transmission to the non-exposed partner. This study offers initial evidence of self- and co-regulation following a laboratory stress-induction and potential predictors and moderations of the set point and stability of these regulatory dynamics. Implications and future directions are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Eileen Barden
- Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA
| | - Seigie Kennedy
- Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA
| | - Dana Ergas
- Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA
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Wang H, Suveg C, West KB, Han ZR, Zhang X, Hu X, Yi L. Synchrony of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia in Parents and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Moderation by Interaction Quality and Child Behavior Problems. Autism Res 2020; 14:512-522. [PMID: 33001539 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2401] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/15/2020] [Revised: 07/30/2020] [Accepted: 09/12/2020] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
Parent-child physiological synchrony, the matching of physiological states between parents and children, is theorized to be important for typically developing (TD) children, but less is known about this process in families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In a sample of 29 children (M age = 8.00 years, SD = 1.51 years) with ASD and 39 TD-matched children (M age = 7.32 years, SD = 1.36 years) and their primary caregivers (n = 68), we examined whether parent-child dyads showed physiological synchrony indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during an interaction, and whether RSA synchrony differed by parent-child interaction quality and child behavior problems. Results indicated that dyads with TD children showed stronger positive RSA synchrony than dyads with children with ASD. Furthermore, for families of children with ASD, RSA synchrony was stronger in families with higher interaction quality and fewer child internalizing problems. These results provide preliminary evidence of parent-child RSA synchrony in families of children with ASD and identify factors that may influence this physiological process. Implications of these findings for social and emotional development in children with ASD are discussed. LAY SUMMARY: Parents and children can get "in tune" with one another at the biological level - a process called physiological synchrony. We studied physiological synchrony in families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in comparison to same-aged children who had no mental health disorders. We also examined how physiological synchrony might be associated with parent-child interaction quality and child behavior problems. We found that families with a child with ASD showed weaker physiological synchrony than families with a child who was typically developing. Further, we found that physiological synchrony was stronger when parents and children with ASD showed higher interaction quality and when children with ASD had lower internalizing problems. These findings contribute to our understanding of family functioning in the context of ASD and have potential implications for future work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hui Wang
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Cynthia Suveg
- Department of Psychology, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
| | - Kara B West
- Department of Psychology, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
| | - Zhuo R Han
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Xutong Zhang
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Xiaoyi Hu
- Department of Special Education, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Li Yi
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
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44
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Rudd KL, Yates TM. A latent change score approach to understanding dynamic autonomic coordination. Psychophysiology 2020; 57:e13648. [PMID: 32716600 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13648] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2019] [Revised: 06/14/2020] [Accepted: 06/30/2020] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
Children's self-regulation is a core adaptive system in child development. Physiological indices of regulation, particularly the autonomic nervous system (ANS), have garnered increased attention as an informative level of analysis in regulation research. Cardiography supports the simultaneous examination of both ANS branches via measures of pre-ejection period (PEP) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as indicators of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity, respectively. However, despite their heavily intertwined functions, research examining autonomic coordination across sympathetic and parasympathetic systems is scarce. Moreover, extant efforts have favored static, mean level reactivity analyses, despite the dynamic nature of ANS regulation and the availability of analytic tools that can model these processes across time. This study drew on a sample of 198 six-year-old children from a diverse community sample (49.5% female, 43.9% Latinx) to examine dynamic autonomic coordination using bivariate latent change score modeling to evaluate bidirectional influences of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity over the course of a challenging puzzle completion task. Results indicated that children evidenced reciprocal sympathetic activation (i.e., PEP attenuation and RSA withdrawal) across the challenge task, and these regulatory responses were characterized by a temporally leading influence of PEP on lagging changes in RSA. The current findings contribute to our understanding of children's autonomic coordination while illustrating a novel analytic technique to advance ongoing efforts to understand the etiology and developmental significance of children's physiological self-regulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kristen L Rudd
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA
| | - Tuppett M Yates
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA
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Oshri A, Liu S, Huffman LG, Koss KJ. Firm parenting and youth adjustment: Stress reactivity and dyadic synchrony of respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Dev Psychobiol 2020; 63:470-480. [PMID: 32677062 DOI: 10.1002/dev.22019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2019] [Revised: 06/11/2020] [Accepted: 06/21/2020] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
Parental behaviors are potent risk and protective factors for youth development of externalizing problems. Firm control is a parenting strategy that is inconsistently linked to youth adjustment, possibly due to variations in individual biological contexts. Growing research shows that dyadic coregulation of the autonomic nervous system (e.g., parent-child physiological synchrony) is a neurobiological mechanism that links parenting to youth adjustment. However, physiological synchrony may be context-dependent (e.g., adaptive in positive interactions, maladaptive in negative interactions). We aimed to test the role of dyadic synchrony in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during parent-child conflict as a mediator between parent firm control and youth's externalizing problems. To capture youth's stress reactivity, we also tested how galvanic skin response reactivity (GSR-R) moderated this indirect path. The sample included 101 dyads of low socioeconomic-status at-risk preadolescents and parents. Results indicated that youth higher levels of GSR-R significantly intensified the link between parent firm control and dyadic RSA synchrony during conflict. Dyadic RSA synchrony further predicted youth increased in externalizing problems. Overall, results suggest that when parents employ firm control parenting with highly reactive teens, dyadic RSA synchrony elevates, potentially modeling less optimal coping with conflict for the youth, which is associated with increased externalizing problems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Assaf Oshri
- Department of Human Development and Family Science, the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.,Youth Development Institute, the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.,Neuroscience Program, the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
| | - Sihong Liu
- Department of Human Development and Family Science, the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.,Youth Development Institute, the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
| | - Landry G Huffman
- Youth Development Institute, the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.,Neuroscience Program, the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
| | - Kalsea J Koss
- Department of Human Development and Family Science, the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
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Somers JA, Curci SG, Luecken LJ. Quantifying the dynamic nature of vagal responsivity in infancy: Methodological innovations and theoretical implications. Dev Psychobiol 2020; 63:582-588. [PMID: 32662127 DOI: 10.1002/dev.22018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2019] [Revised: 06/15/2020] [Accepted: 06/21/2020] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
According to polyvagal theory, rapid modulation of the vagal brake develops early in infancy and supports social interactions. Despite being viewed as a dynamic system, researchers typically assess vagal regulation using global measures of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; an index of vagal tone). This study sought to capture the dynamic property of RSA and evaluate individual differences in within-infant RSA responsivity during mother-infant interaction. RSA was evaluated in a sample of 135 6-month-old Mexican-American infants during a 5-min free play task. Mothers reported on their children's behavioral problems and competence at 18 months using the Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment. Time-varying estimates of infant RSA during the interaction were obtained using a multiple window technique and spectrogram analysis. Using structural equation modeling, we evaluated whether within-infant SD of RSA predicted infants' behavioral problems and competence at 18 months, after adjusting for infants' mean RSA and covariates. Greater within-infant SD of RSA predicted more behavior problems at 18 months. This study demonstrates that assessing intra-individual variability in RSA, or the extent to which infants fluctuate around their average level of RSA during a task, enhances our ability to test polyvagal theory's central tenet: vagal regulation supports well-regulated social interaction.
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Deits-Lebehn C, Baucom KJW, Crenshaw AO, Smith TW, Baucom BRW. Incorporating physiology into the study of psychotherapy process. J Couns Psychol 2020; 67:488-499. [PMID: 32614229 PMCID: PMC7899534 DOI: 10.1037/cou0000391] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
Abstract
Increasing evidence indicates that psychological factors important to therapy effectiveness are associated with physiological activity. Knowledge of the physiological correlates of therapy process variables has the potential to provide unique insights into how and why therapy works, but little is currently known about the physiological underpinnings of specific therapy processes that facilitate client growth and change. The goal of this article is to introduce therapy process researchers to the use of physiological methods for studying therapy process variables. We do this by (a) presenting a conceptual framework for the study of therapy process variables, (b) providing an introductory overview of physiological systems with particular promise for the study of therapy process variables, (c) introducing the primary methods and methodological decisions involved in physiological research, and (d) demonstrating these principles and methods in a case of therapeutic presence during couple therapy. We close with a discussion of the promise and challenges in the study of physiological correlates of therapy process variables and consideration of future challenges and open questions in this line of research. Online supplemental materials include additional resources for therapy process researchers interested in getting started with physiological research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
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Schreiber AM, Wright AGC, Beeney JE, Stepp SD, Scott LN, Pilkonis PA, Hallquist MN. Disrupted physiological coregulation during a conflict predicts short-term discord and long-term relationship dysfunction in couples with personality pathology. JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 2020; 129:433-444. [PMID: 32437206 PMCID: PMC7330878 DOI: 10.1037/abn0000526] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Interpersonal dysfunction is a core feature of personality disorders, often affecting close relationships. Nevertheless, little is known about the moment-to-moment dynamic processes by which personality pathology contributes to dysfunctional relationships. Here, we investigated the role of physiological attunement during a conflict discussion in romantic couples oversampled for personality pathology. We hypothesized that physiological coregulation would be disrupted in individuals with personality pathology, subsequently predicting short-term discord and long-term relationship dissatisfaction. One hundred twenty-one couples completed a 10-min discussion about an area of disagreement while cardiovascular physiology and behavior were recorded. We quantified coregulation using a dynamical systems model of heart rate changes. We found that greater interpersonal problem severity was associated with more contrarian coregulation, exacerbating negative affect and interpersonal perceptions. Furthermore, the extent to which coregulation was associated with increased discord prospectively predicted relationship dissatisfaction 1 year later. Altogether, this work sheds light on a pathway by which personality pathology contributes to problems in romantic relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
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Li Z, Sturge-Apple ML, Liu S, Davies PT. Parent-adolescent physiological synchrony: Moderating effects of adolescent emotional insecurity. Psychophysiology 2020; 57:e13596. [PMID: 32394446 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13596] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2019] [Revised: 02/15/2020] [Accepted: 03/23/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
The present study investigated physiological synchrony in the parasympathetic nervous system among fathers, mothers, and adolescents during a real-time family interaction, and child characteristics that may moderate the level of physiological synchrony. Our sample consisted of 191 families with adolescents (Mage = 12.4 years) and both of their parents, who participated in a triadic family conflict discussion. During the discussion, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was measured for all three family members. Multilevel analysis indicated a significant positive concurrent synchrony between adolescents and their mothers, as well as between fathers and mothers on a minute-to-minute basis. No RSA synchrony was found between adolescents and their fathers. Furthermore, adolescent emotional insecurity significantly moderated mother-adolescent RSA synchrony. Whereas adolescents with low emotional insecurity exhibited positive synchrony with their mothers, no synchrony was observed when adolescent emotional insecurity was high. In conclusion, findings of the present study illuminate the patterns of RSA synchrony among parents and adolescents and highlight a link between adolescent emotional insecurity and attenuated mother-adolescent physiological synchrony.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhi Li
- Department of Psychology & Mt. Hope Family Center, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
| | - Melissa L Sturge-Apple
- Department of Psychology & Mt. Hope Family Center, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
| | - Siwei Liu
- Department of Human Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Patrick T Davies
- Department of Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
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Creavy KL, Gatzke‐Kopp LM, Zhang X, Fishbein D, Kiser LJ. When you go low, I go high: Negative coordination of physiological synchrony among parents and children. Dev Psychobiol 2020; 62:310-323. [DOI: 10.1002/dev.21905] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2019] [Revised: 07/10/2019] [Accepted: 07/10/2019] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Kristine L. Creavy
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies Pennsylvania State University State College Pennsylvania
- Child Welfare Resource Center University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
| | - Lisa M. Gatzke‐Kopp
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies Pennsylvania State University State College Pennsylvania
| | - Xutong Zhang
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies Pennsylvania State University State College Pennsylvania
| | - Diana Fishbein
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies Pennsylvania State University State College Pennsylvania
| | - Laurel J. Kiser
- University of Maryland School of Medicine Baltimore Maryland
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