Change in heart period: A function of sensorimotor event timing within the cardiac cycle

Abstract

In a fixed-foreperiod reaction time experiment with 66 male college students, the heart rate for the same cardiac cycle within which the imperative stimulus occurred was slowed. The slowing was greater for imperative stimuli presented early in the cardiac cycle than late. The “monotonic” (linear) trend was highly significant, p< 10-8. There was also a significant “bitonic” (quadratic) trend, p