Bilateral electrodermal activity during performance of cognitive tasks of varying difficulty levels

Abstract

Skin resistance responses (SRRs) were recorded bilaterally from right-handed males engaged in putative hemisphere-specific tasks of differing difficulty levels. In Experiment 1, electrodermal activity (EDA) was recorded while subjects were engaged in detecting a key word or a key word together with other words of related meaning from a prose passage (easy and difficult “verbal” tasks, respectively) and while engaged in a circle-circle or an arc-circle visual matching task (easy and difficult “spatial” tasks, respectively). EDA was a function of task difficulty, with smaller responses when subjects performed the more difficult “verbal” and “spatial” cognitive tasks. There was no evidence of asymmetrical EDA under any task condition. In Experiment 2, EDA was again a function of task difficulty, with less activity when subjects read more difficult prose passages aloud, and was again bilaterally symmetrical under each task condition. These results support the proposal of inhibitory cortical regulation of electrodermal activity but question whether this regulation is mediated only by contralateral pathways. © 1984, Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.