Psychosomatic Medicine 36:420-437 (1974)
© 1974 American Psychosomatic Society

Cardiac Correlates of Cognitive Processing

¹ Research Center for Mental Health, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003

A 17 minute passage taken from a simulated psychoanalytic interview was played to a sample of trained therapists, therapists in training and inexperienced undergraduates who were alerted to the organizing theme (of termination of treatment) and asked to attend to direct and indirect references to this theme. Tonic heart rate, averaged over 30 second periods, was lower when clues were present than during control periods when clues were not present. Phasic heart rate (11 second profiles) in the vicinity of each clue was significantly lower than profiles surrounding control passages. Profiles surrounding recalled clues were significantly lower than profiles surrounding control clues. Profiles surrounding more relevant clues were significantly lower than profiles surrounding control clues whether or not the clue was recalled later. The findings suggest that decrease in mean heart rate can be used to mark the appearance of a significant stimulus even in cases where it does not appear in later recall; thus an on-line heart rate (HR) decrease may be a more sensitive index of stimulus processing than a later verbal report. Correlations were also found between HR change and clinical experience and between awareness of termination clues and clinical orientation.