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Updated: Apr 26, 2026

Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
Published on: February 11, 2017
Studying the dynamics of autonomic activity during emotional experience
Yulia Golland1, Kobi Keissar, Nava Levit-Binnun
1Sagol Institute for Applied Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel.
Abstract:
Recent theories emphasize the dynamic aspects of emotions. However, the physiological measures and the methodological approaches that can capture the dynamics of emotions are underdeveloped. In the current study, we investigated whether moment-to-moment changes in autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity are reliably associated with the unfolding of emotional experience. We obtained cardiovascular and electrodermal signals from participants while they viewed emotional movies. We found that the ANS signals were temporally aligned across individuals, indicating a reliable stimulus-driven response. The degree of response reliability was associated with the emotional time line of the movie. Finally, individual differences in ANS response reliability were strongly correlated with the subjective emotional responses. The current research offers a methodological approach for studying physiological responses during dynamic emotional situations.
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