electrodermal response

electrodermal response [i‚lek·trə¦dərm·əl ri′späns]

(physiology)

galvanic skin response

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Electrodermal response

A transient change in certain electrical properties of the skin, associated with the sweat gland activity and elicited by any stimulus that evokes an arousal or orienting response. Originally termed the psychogalvanic reflex, this phenomenon became known as the galvanic skin response. Electrodermal response (EDR) has replaced galvanic skin response as the collective term.

The skin of a relaxed person has a low electrical conductance (high resistance), and the skin surface is some 40 mV negative with respect to interior tissues. Sweat gland activity changes these electrical properties by increasing skin conductance and by changing the balance of positive and negative ions in the secreted fluid.

Tonic skin conductance varies with psychological arousal, rising sharply when the subject awakens and rising further with activity, mental effort, or especially stress. Phasic skin conductance responses are wavelike increases in skin conductance that begin 1–2 s after stimulus onset and peak within about 5 s. The amplitude of the skin conductance response varies with the subjective impact of the eliciting stimulus, which in turn varies with the intensity of the stimulus, its novelty or unexpectedness for the subject, and its meaning or signal value. Aroused subjects display spontaneous skin conductance responses, generated apparently by mental events or other internal stimuli; their frequency, like the tonic skin conductance level, increases with the level of arousal.

Electrodermal responses are measured in studies of emotion and stress, conditioning, habituation, and cognitive processing, that is, when it is desired to assess the differential or changing impact of a series of stimuli. See Electroencephalography, Sympathetic nervous system