The nicotine paradox: effect of smoking on autonomic discrimination

Smoking reduces negative affect while it increases sympathetic nervous system activity. However, theories of emotion predict that increased autonomic arousal should increase rather than reduce negative affect. One explanation for this paradox is that nicotine interferes with perception of autonomic activity. We evaluated the effect of smoking on autonomic activity perception by measuring performance on a heartbeat detection task after a high or low dose of nicotine or not smoking. A group of nonsmokers also completed the task. Results failed to support the hypothesis. In light of previous research, the results suggest EMG perception may be more important to the negative affect reduction phenomenon than perception of autonomic activity.