Anxiety, arousal, and autonomic habituation

The interaction of anxiety and autonomic activation as a factor in the development and persistency of pathological anxiety was investigated with the aid of self-rating procedures and a habituation experiment. The state of activation was varied systematically in 40 normal subjects by various experimental conditions and by the administration of a tranquilizer. The degree of anxiety and activation were able to be differentiated in the investigated range of mean attentiveness. Anxious expectancy is perceived in particular as subjective anxiety. Fatigue and sedation, on the other hand, demonstrate subjective and autonomic desactivation. Corresponding differences can be demonstrated for the anxiolytic and sedative effects of tranquilizers. The time course of habituation is a more exact indicator than the amplitude of the orienting response. Cognitively provoked apprehensiveness, thus, appears to be qualitatively different as compared to psychoautonomically caused anxieties of psychiatric disorders.