Results from six autonomic nervous system responses confirm "autonomic response specificity" hypothesis

The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) specificity concept corresponds, according to Lacey, to the preferential reaction on the part of the same subject along a determined ANS channel. Six channels: skin potential, resistance, blood flow, temperature, and instantaneous heart and respiratory frequencies were recorded simultaneously in 33 subjects submitted to a verbal association test likely to arouse different kinds of emotions, and to mental arithmetic. Studies of these six parameters in relation to mean response, and principal component analysis made it possible to bring the individual response to the fore via ANS preferential channels, and thus to confirm Lacey's hypothesis, while adding further evidence as corollaries.