Habituation and the Structure of the Electrodermal System

The intercorrelatons among fifteen common SRR variables were investigated on two samples of male subjects in a standard habituation paradigm. The first group (N = 212) was made up of 149 prisoners and 63 controls (mean age = 28yrs) while the second group (N =84) were all twins (mean age=25 yrs). All subject received 21 auditory stimuli at an ISI of 33 sec. Each stimulus was sinusoidal, at 1000 Hz. of 1 see duration and at 95 (IB ire 20 N/cm2). The fifteen SRR measures taken from each subject included mean and change scores for basal conductance, response amplitude, spontaneous fluctuation frequency, number of responses, and onset, peak and half‐recovery latencies. The variables were Intel‐correlated and factor analyzed. The.05 rejection region was adopted in all statistical tests. A fun h simple structure for the variables was demonstrated. Hit' results emphasized the importance of a large general reactivity component in must of these variables. Within‐subject correlations were calculated and found to be different from across‐subject correlations. It is suggested that under constant stimulus conditions subjects display different but individually topical SCR shapes which reduce in size during habituation.