The Psychophysiological Differentiation of Actual, Imagined, and Recollected Anger

Abstract

Heart rate and skin resistance responses from thirty-six participants (5 men and 31 women) were recorded to determine if significant differences exist among three different types of inducing anger including the present state of anger (Actual Anger), anger elicited through imagination (Imagined Anger), and anger elicited through recollection (Recollected Anger). An analysis of variance indicated significant differences for heart rate among the three methods, F(2,35) = 8.75, p = .0009, but not for skin resistance, F(2,35) = 1.298, p = .287. However, contrary to the hypotheses forwarded, both Imagined and Recollected Anger generated significantly higher heart rate responses than Actual Anger. Implications of these findings and a theoretical framework for interpretation are both presented.

Experimental Methods for Inducing Basic Emotions: A Qualitative Review

“…A meta-analysis found that visual stimuli have a smaller effect on anger than autobiographical recall, situational procedures, and imagery (Lench et al, 2011). Additional research found that situational procedures are more effective than visual stimuli, but that imagery and recall are more effective than situational procedures (Foster, Smith, & Webster, 1999;Lobbestael et al, 2008). We therefore recommend imagery or recall as the strongest techniques for inducing anger, followed by situational procedures, visual stimuli, and music.…”

The Psychophysiological Differentiation of Actual, Imagined, and Recollected Mirth

“…While some investigations successfully differentiated emotions psychophysiologically, others did not. In addition, even among those investigations that were successful, the findings were in many instances contradictory [21]. The present authors have suggested that these conflicting and incongruent findings may be the result of the myriad of different methodologies used to induce emotions [21].…”

“…In addition, even among those investigations that were successful, the findings were in many instances contradictory [21]. The present authors have suggested that these conflicting and incongruent findings may be the result of the myriad of different methodologies used to induce emotions [21]. Many of the aforementioned investigations have utilized different methods to induce emotional arousal.…”

“…Indeed, there currently exist numerous different procedures for inducing emotional arousal through creating an actual emotional situation. For instance, some investigators have induced the desired emotions by having an experimenter or a confederate interact with the participants [2,10,15,21,22]. Other investigators have required the participants to view film presentations or slides selected to induce the target emotion [1,7,16,19,[23][24][25][26].…”

Cerebral Correlates of Varying Ages of Emotional Memories

“…Further, this implication becomes especially pertinent when considering the fact that most investigations using emotional memories have typically not reported either placing any constraints on the ages of the memories to be recalled 1,3,7,[9][10]12,[16][17][18] or specified a specific age for the memories. 2,[4][5][6][13][14] Realizing the potentially serious implications of a relation between varying ages of emotional memories and psychophysiological responding, Foster and Webster 5 conducted an investigation to determine whether such a relation existed. The findings of this investigation indicated that a significant positive correlation existed between changes in skin conductance and ages of both angry and mirthful memories.…”