PSYCH 2B03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 29: Bradycardia, Heart Rate Variability, Tachycardia
11 Feb 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Theories of Personality
November 20, 2018
Biological Bases of Personality
Inhibition and ‘Somatotype’
• 60% of inhibited children have blue eyes
• 60% of uninhibited children have brown eyes
• More kin of inhibited children have blue eyes; of uninhibited have brown
• Inhibited boys have narrow faces, thin builds
o Body shapes and sizes are stereotyped to relate to personality
o Large people are jolly (i.e., Santa couldn’t be skinny)
Predicting Inhibition
• Highly reactive group (high on both motor activity and distress) were significantly more
likely to later be classified as extremely inhibited than were infants in the other categories
• Low reactive group (low on both motor activity and distress) is most likely to be
uninhibited
• Able to identify children 2-3 years later that were most likely to be inhibited
Low Distress
High Distress
Low Motor
Low Reactive
- (40% of sample)
- 50% uninhibited
- 14% inhibited
Distressed
- (25% of sample)
- 55% uninhibited
- 0% inhibited
High Motor
Aroused
- (10% of sample)
- 40% uninhibited
- 20% inhibited
High Reactive
- (25% of sample)
- 24% uninhibited
- 40% inhibited
Low- Verses High-Reactive (HR) Children
• HR: higher amygdala excitability (age 11)
• HR: More right than left hemisphere EEG activity (age 11)
o Strong relationship between side of brain most active and emotion
o Right hemisphere associated with negative emotions
o Left hemisphere associated with positive emotions
• HR: Less vagal control of cardiovascular system (age 11)
o Vagal controls heart rate – thought to monitor heart rate related to outside
stimulus
▪ Low heart rate variability is bad – (high reactivity group)
▪ High heart rate variability is good
• HR: Larger N400 ERP (evoke response patterns) to discrepant visual scenes (age 11)
o Larger negatively moving part of the ERP (400 milliseconds response after
presentation)
• HR: Thicker right prefrontal cortex (age 18)
o Right side associated with negative emotions
