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Updated: Jan 25, 2026

Measuring Cardiac Autonomic Nervous System ANS Activity in Toddlers - Resting and Developmental Challenges
Published on: February 25, 2016
The autonomic nervous system and personality
1Psychology Program, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, 101 Vera King Farris Drive, Galloway, NJ 08205-9441, USA. lesterd@stockton.edu
Abstract:
In a sample of 35 male and 93 female undergraduate students (M(age) = 21.0, SD = 2.2), it was not possible to develop a meaningful scale to measure whether individuals have a dominant sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system or a dominant parasympathetic division balance using the items in Plutchik and Conte's inventory measuring psychophysiological reactivity. Replicable sex differences in response to the items were identified which may merit further study.
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