Psychophysiology.

The brain’s first and foremost job is to balance resources across the multiple systems of the body. To understand human psychology, it’s critical that we understand human physiology. For more on this idea, check out the books “Principles of Neural Design” by Peter Sterling and Simon Laughlin, “The Deep History of Ourselves” by Joseph LeDoux, and “How Emotions are Made” by Lisa Feldman Barrett.

helpful RESOURCES

General reference texts:

• “Psychophysiological Recording” - Robert Stern, William Ray, and Karen Quigley

• “Handbook of Psychophysiology” - John Cacioppo, Louis Tassinary, and Gary Bertnson

• “Electrodermal Activity” - Wolfram Boucsein

Aquisition Guidelines:

• The Society for Psychophysiological research (SPR) maintains a list of acquisition guidelines which can be found here.

• Electrogastrography for psychophysiological research: Practical considerations, analysis pipeline, and normative data in a large sample - Wolpert et al (2020)

Hardware/Scoring Software:

• Mindware Systems

• Biopac Systems

• Neurokit2 - This one is free and open-source!

Baselines & Reactivity Scores:

• “Alternate Cardiovascular Baseline Assessment Techniques: Vanilla or Resting Baseline” - Jennings et al. (1992)

• “The Reliability and Specificity of Delta Versus Residualized Change as Measures of Cardiovascular Reactivity to Behavioral Challenges” - Llabre et al (1991)

• “Cardiovascular Reactivity to Psychological Challenge: Conceptual and Measurement Considerations” - Kamarck & Lovallo (2003)

• Chapter 27 in the Handbook of Psychophysiology - John Cacioppo, Louis Tassinary, and Gary Bertnson

Filtering:

• “Digital Filtering: Background and Tutorial for Psychophysiologists” - Cook & Miller (1992)

Ambulatory Physiology Monitoring:

• “Framework for selecting and benchmarking mobile devices in psychophysiological research” - Kleckner, Feldman, Goodwin, & Quigley (2020)

• “A standardized validity assessment protocol for physiological signals from wearable technology: methodological underpinnings and an application to the E4 biosensor.” - van Lier et al (2019)

• “Telemetric monitoring in the behavior sciences” - Goodwin, Velicer, & Intille (2008)

Heart Rate Variability:

• “Heart Rate Variability: Standards of measurement, physiological interpretation, and clinical use.” - Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology (1996)

• “Heart Rate Variability: Origins, methods, and interpretive caveats” - Berntson et al (1997)

• “Respiratory sinus arrhythmia: Autonomic origins, physiological mechanisms, and psychophysiological implications” - Berntson, Cacioppo, & Quigley (1993)

• “Should heart rate variability be ‘corrected' for heart rate? Biological, quantitative, and interpretive considerations.” - De Geus et al (2018)

• “Considerations in the assessment of heart rate variability in biobehavioral research” - Quintana & Heathers (2014)

• “Everything Hertz: methodological issues in short-term frequency-domain HRV” - Heathers (2014)

Electrodermal Activity:

• “The relationship of sweat gland count to electrodermal activity” - Freedman et al (1994)

• “Emotional sweating across the body: comparing 16 different skin conductance measurement locations.” - Van Dooran (2012)

MRI SAFETY:

• “Electrocardiogram in an MRI Environment: Clinical Needs, Practical Considerations, Safety Implications, Technical Solutions and Future Directions.” - Niendorf et al (2012)

• BIOPAC notes: Safety Awareness Notes when using Cables and Electrodes during MRI