Task Difficulty, Heart Rate Reactivity, and Cardiovascular Responses to an Appetitive Reaction Time Task

ABSTRACT Cardiovascular responses of 72 young men were assessed during an appetitive reaction time task where winning money incentives was either easy, difficult, or impossible. The impossible condition led to reduced responses (e.g., longer pre‐ejection period (PEP) and pulse transit time (PTT) and greater falls in systolic and diastolic pressures) as well as reports of trying less hard than the easy or the difficult condition. Regardless of task difficulty, subjects showing greater heart rate (HR) increases at task onset maintained higher HR levels than low HR reactors throughout the task. Overall, these high HR reactors also showed higher SBP and shorter PEP, PTT and left ventricular ejection time than low HR reactors, although these differences were less pronounced by the end of the task. Based on their responses to various standardized inventories, high and low HR reactors did not differ in behavioral traits such as Type A, suppressed hostility, or active coping as the preferred coping style. However, a subsample of subjects with extreme scores indicating suppressed hostility (N = 12) did show elevated HR and systolic pressure during both relaxation and the appetitive task.