An Individualized Approach to Skin Conductance Assessment during Execution of Tasks of Different Complexities

Researchers use different approaches to analyze changes in skin conductance. At the same time, individual differences observed in both the initial values of skin conductance and response to stimuli do not allow comparing the responses of different subjects to the same impact. An individualized approach to the assessment of psycho-emotional stress has been developed using the real-time skin conductance index during continuous performance of a task with different levels of complexity. The participants, 18 second-year students at the actors' high school, performed a simple task (expressive reading aloud of a simple text) and a difficult task (expressive reading aloud of the text inverted 180°). During the task, the skin conductance in the participants was continuously recorded. We revealed a change in the parameters of skin conductivity depending on the complexity of the task, both in comparison with resting state (baseline) and with simple and complex stages of the study. However, the individual skin conduction curves in the subjects differed greatly. A method for assessing the individual differences in parameters of skin conductance was proposed based on ranking by categories of values during continuous performance of tasks with different levels of complexity. This method allows comparing the levels of cognitive load in participants with different initial levels of skin conductance due to transition from the absolute to relative values at time intervals that are important for the researcher.