PSYCH 3JJ3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Vagal Tone, Heart Rate Variability, Empathy
11 Dec 2019
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Document Summary
132 typically developing children (m age = 63. 5 months, 62 males) Collected 5 minutes baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (rsa) heart rate variability. Coded observed empathy (cognitive and affective) from a feigned injury task by female experimenter. Cognitive empathy = the child"s attempts to understand the victims distress, expressed through gaze, verbal inquiries, and physical exploration. Affective empathy = affective expression of concern for the victim (e. g. facial, gestural, and vocal signals of sympathy and/or sadness) Moderating influence of baseline heart rate variability on the link between shyness and empathy in children. Children who were classified as shy and who also had relatively lower rsa (lower hear rate variability) showed the lowest amount of cognitive empathy. Some shy children may have a bias towards inability to regulate physiological arousal in some contexts. Clear individual differences exist in children"s emotional expressiveness beginning in early infancy.
