Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
Volume 86, Issue 2, Pages 168-172Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.08.012
Keywords
Heart rate variability; Emotion recognition; Autonomic nervous system; Social cognition; Polyvagal theory; Neurovisceral integration model
Funding
- Australian Rotary Health/Hooton family scholarship
- Australian Postgraduate Award (APA)
- NHMRC Career Development Fellowship [571101]
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It is well established that heart rate variability (HRV) plays an important role in social communication. Polyvagal theory suggests that HRV may provide a sensitive marker of one's ability to respond and recognize social cues. The aim of the present study was to directly test this hypothesis. Resting-state HRV was collected and performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test was assessed in 65 volunteers. HRV was positively associated with performance on this emotion recognition task confirming our hypothesis and these findings were retained after controlling for a variety of confounding variables known to influence HRV - sex, BMI, smoking habits, physical activity levels, depression, anxiety, and stress. Our data suggests that increased HRV may provide a novel marker of one's ability to recognize emotions in humans. Implications for understanding the biological basis of emotion recognition, and social impairment in humans are discussed. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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