Skin conductance and heart-rate responsivity to public speaking imagery among students with high and low self-reported fear: A comparative analysis of “response” definitions

The experiment evaluated the feasibility of using self-report measures of public speaking anxiety to select autonomically responsive Ss for behavior therapy research and the influence of E's definition of "response" on empirical generalizations derived from the study. Heartrate and skin conductance responses of Ss who scored high and of Ss who scored low on self-report fear measures were monitored during neutral and speech-related imagery. High-scoring Ss were more responsive than were low-scoring Ss, but the surplus responsivity was not cued uniquely by speech-related imagery. Examination of four definitions (transformations) of heart-rate response and five definitions of skin conductance response showed that different conclusions were yielded by differing response definitions. Implications of the findings for further research are presented.