<p>Electrodermal activity is an index of sympathetic activation and a skin conductance response can occur in many situations. It is therefore a very general response and can arise as a result of stimulus novelty or “significance” (whether you want to call this an affective response is up to you but it seems very different from common sense notions of what an emotion is).</p>
<p>You can however measure phasic responses specific to a stimulus in the sense that even a single presentation can be followed by a skin conductance “spike”. The shape of the response will however not be specific to a class of stimulus or narrowly defined content (there is no obvious characteristic “fear” or “happiness” signature, no “audio” or “visual” skin conductance response).</p>
<p>There are some attempts to discriminate positive from negative emotions based on skin conductance and also quite a lot of research using machine learning techniques to classify emotional responses based on physiological measurement but usually not on a single signal, and without much success for electrodermal activity alone.</p>
<p>Skin conductance is often interpreted as some sort of physiological arousal but that's a notion Wolfram Boucsein would probably have considered too simplistic. I don't think you need to over-analyze a single sentence to find an answer to your question, it should be quite clear from the whole book and, implicitly, from the fact that Boucsein did not discuss patterns of skin conductance responses associated with discrete emotions (which he would have if well-established results on this existed).</p>
<p>If you dig into the psycholophysiological literature, you will find that sophisticated approaches try to disentangle the activation of various part of the autonomic nervous system and deal with things like the defense or orientation response, preparedness to conditioning, fight-or-flight, etc. None of this maps neatly to subjective/expressive emotion categories like “fear” or “anger”.</p>
<p>Regarding the Q-Sensor, I have never actually used it but I have read a few papers and seen work from Rosalind Picard's lab at conferences and the like and I was under the impression that a big part of this research was concerned with skin conductance <em>level</em>, not <em>responses</em> (i.e. tonic responses, things like being relaxed or excited by an activity over a period of several minutes, but not phasic responses to a single picture or audio clip). If you follow Boucsein, it's not even clear you could get a clean measure of phasic responses with a sensor that's not firmly attached to the body on one of the spots with many sweat glands (palm of the hand or foot).</p>
<p>Some other references:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Cacioppo, J. T., Klein, D. J., Berntson, G. G., &amp; Hatfield, E. (1993). The Psychophysiology of Emotion. In M. Lewis &amp; J. M. Haviland (Eds.) <em>Handbook of Emotions</em> (pp. 119-142). New York: The Guilford Press.</p>
<p>There is a chapter on the topic in every edition of the <em>Handbook</em> with a slightly different constellation of authors each time but I don't have the references at hand. The one from the second edition (2000) contains a meta-analysis of studies on the discrimination between discrete emotions through physiology.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Dawson, M. E., Schell, A. M., &amp; Filion, D. L. (1990). The Electrodermal System. In J. T. Cacioppo, L. G. Tassinary (Eds.) Principles of psychophysiology: Physical, social, and inferential elements (pp. 295-324). New York: Cambridge University Press.</p>
<p>Again, the chapter has been updated in later editions of the book (published under the title <em>Handbook of psychophysiology</em> starting with the second edition) and is worth checking out.</p>
</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-24T09:05:20.247Z
Thank you. This is what they mention about Q-Sensor: "You can usually elicit SCR’s by startling a person with a sudden noise, flash of light, or puff of air. You can also ask them to tell everyone something significant happening in their life. Or you can give them tasks that might elicit cognitive, physical, or emotional effort: lots of mental math, jumping jacks, or something that makes them laugh.
Some psychophysiologists elicit SCR’s in themselves by rapidly sniffing, or by holding their breath (but only very briefly)." (http://www.qsensortech.com/resources/getting-started/test-sensor/)
Dana Sugu
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-24T08:20:31.467Z
2013-07-24T11:30:47.107Z
2020-06-17T09:55:31.633Z
Gala
<p>The article <em><a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.658.1856&amp;rep=rep1&amp;type=pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Autonomic nervous system activity in emotion: A review</a></em> seems to answer your question.</p>

<p>You will find in Table 2 the average electrodermal effect (unweighted) found in 134 studies for different emotions. I see in the Skin Conductance Response (SCR) row that all the 11 emotions under study produced an increase in activation from baseline, except for 'sadness acute' (decrease) and 'contentment' (identical). This is the level of differentiation in emotional states you will find with this particular measure.</p>

<p>Given that Table 2 is an average, you may find some stronger variations across emotional states in a particular experiment. Table A1 gives a list of the articles that measured SCR.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2013-07-24T15:15:37.480Z
2018-09-28T20:49:51.670Z
2018-09-28T20:49:51.670Z
marsei
<p><a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/galvactivator/faq.html">The skin conductance response</a> (SCR) is said that cannot be reduced to one specific stimulus (Boucsein, 2012). Does this mean that if the participant is presented with stimuli of different emotional content, separated by pause, there would be no specific response to the emotional stimuli?</p>

<p>References
Boucsein, W. (2012). Electrodermal activity: Springer.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-22T20:15:38.383Z
This has been a controversial subject since the early days of polygraphy.  It's a good question.
Chuck Sherrington
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-23T04:57:20.553Z
Our lab purchased Affectiva Q Sensor (http://www.qsensortech.com/) last year. Now the Q Sensor has been discontinued.
Dana Sugu
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-23T06:10:31.433Z
I can't parse the first sentence in this question. What does it mean?
Jake Westfall
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-23T06:36:41.787Z
@JakeWestfall I believe he's stating that a researcher can't discern whether a skin conductance response is to, e.g., fear, or a response to, e.g., happiness or excitement purely based on the tracing (amplitude or frequency content).
Chuck Sherrington
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-23T06:48:35.293Z
The first sentence belongs to Boucsein. That is the reason I asked the question. If I ask the participant to passively listen to audio files, rated as depicting a certain emotion (happiness, anger, etc), and separated by silence, will I be able to see different skin conductance responses corresponding to happiness, anger, etc?
Dana Sugu
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-24T07:46:41.817Z
Could you give a precise quote and a more specific reference (page/chapter)?
Gala
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-27T06:36:19.110Z
Still waiting for a specific quote, since you asked for a commentary it seems not much to ask.
Gala
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-30T13:20:54.500Z
Sect. 2.3.2.2 Tonic Parameters Derived from Phasic Changes, Electrodermal Activity, 2nd edition, 2012
Dana Sugu
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-29T10:52:52.703Z
@Dana Although clear from the context, I have to agree that first sentence is confusing/grammatically incorrect. Could you include the exact quote from the book instead and format it as a quote? Other than that, +1, still a relevant question!
Steven Jeuris
<cognitive-psychology><measurement><emotion><physiology><cognitive-neuroscience>
Skin conductance responses to emotional stimuli
Dana Sugu
# Skin conductance responses to emotional stimuli

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-07-22)

[The skin conductance response](http://www.media.mit.edu/galvactivator/faq.html) (SCR) is said that cannot be reduced to one specific stimulus (Boucsein, 2012). Does this mean that if the participant is presented with stimuli of different emotional content, separated by pause, there would be no specific response to the emotional stimuli?

References
Boucsein, W. (2012). Electrodermal activity: Springer.

**Tags:** cognitive-psychology, measurement, emotion, physiology, cognitive-neuroscience

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: This has been a controversial subject since the early days of polygraphy.  It's a good question.  
> **username_0**: Our lab purchased Affectiva Q Sensor (http://www.qsensortech.com/) last year. Now the Q Sensor has been discontinued.  
> **username_2**: I can't parse the first sentence in this question. What does it mean?  
> **username_1**: @JakeWestfall I believe he's stating that a researcher can't discern whether a skin conductance response is to, e.g., fear, or a response to, e.g., happiness or excitement purely based on the tracing (amplitude or frequency content).  
> **username_0**: The first sentence belongs to Boucsein. That is the reason I asked the question. If I ask the participant to passively listen to audio files, rated as depicting a certain emotion (happiness, anger, etc), and separated by silence, will I be able to see different skin conductance responses corresponding to happiness, anger, etc?  
> **username_3**: Could you give a precise quote and a more specific reference (page/chapter)?  
> **username_3**: Still waiting for a specific quote, since you asked for a commentary it seems not much to ask.  
> **username_0**: Sect. 2.3.2.2 Tonic Parameters Derived from Phasic Changes, Electrodermal Activity, 2nd edition, 2012  
> **username_4**: @Dana Although clear from the context, I have to agree that first sentence is confusing/grammatically incorrect. Could you include the exact quote from the book instead and format it as a quote? Other than that, +1, still a relevant question!  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2013-07-24. Score: 7 | Accepted answer

The article *[Autonomic nervous system activity in emotion: A review](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.658.1856&rep=rep1&type=pdf)* seems to answer your question.

You will find in Table 2 the average electrodermal effect (unweighted) found in 134 studies for different emotions. I see in the Skin Conductance Response (SCR) row that all the 11 emotions under study produced an increase in activation from baseline, except for 'sadness acute' (decrease) and 'contentment' (identical). This is the level of differentiation in emotional states you will find with this particular measure.

Given that Table 2 is an average, you may find some stronger variations across emotional states in a particular experiment. Table A1 gives a list of the articles that measured SCR.


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2013-07-24. Score: 8

Electrodermal activity is an index of sympathetic activation and a skin conductance response can occur in many situations. It is therefore a very general response and can arise as a result of stimulus novelty or “significance” (whether you want to call this an affective response is up to you but it seems very different from common sense notions of what an emotion is).

You can however measure phasic responses specific to a stimulus in the sense that even a single presentation can be followed by a skin conductance “spike”. The shape of the response will however not be specific to a class of stimulus or narrowly defined content (there is no obvious characteristic “fear” or “happiness” signature, no “audio” or “visual” skin conductance response).

There are some attempts to discriminate positive from negative emotions based on skin conductance and also quite a lot of research using machine learning techniques to classify emotional responses based on physiological measurement but usually not on a single signal, and without much success for electrodermal activity alone.

Skin conductance is often interpreted as some sort of physiological arousal but that's a notion Wolfram Boucsein would probably have considered too simplistic. I don't think you need to over-analyze a single sentence to find an answer to your question, it should be quite clear from the whole book and, implicitly, from the fact that Boucsein did not discuss patterns of skin conductance responses associated with discrete emotions (which he would have if well-established results on this existed).

If you dig into the psycholophysiological literature, you will find that sophisticated approaches try to disentangle the activation of various part of the autonomic nervous system and deal with things like the defense or orientation response, preparedness to conditioning, fight-or-flight, etc. None of this maps neatly to subjective/expressive emotion categories like “fear” or “anger”.

Regarding the Q-Sensor, I have never actually used it but I have read a few papers and seen work from Rosalind Picard's lab at conferences and the like and I was under the impression that a big part of this research was concerned with skin conductance *level*, not *responses* (i.e. tonic responses, things like being relaxed or excited by an activity over a period of several minutes, but not phasic responses to a single picture or audio clip). If you follow Boucsein, it's not even clear you could get a clean measure of phasic responses with a sensor that's not firmly attached to the body on one of the spots with many sweat glands (palm of the hand or foot).

Some other references:

* Cacioppo, J. T., Klein, D. J., Berntson, G. G., & Hatfield, E. (1993). The Psychophysiology of Emotion. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland (Eds.) *Handbook of Emotions* (pp. 119-142). New York: The Guilford Press.

  There is a chapter on the topic in every edition of the *Handbook* with a slightly different constellation of authors each time but I don't have the references at hand. The one from the second edition (2000) contains a meta-analysis of studies on the discrimination between discrete emotions through physiology.
* Dawson, M. E., Schell, A. M., & Filion, D. L. (1990). The Electrodermal System. In J. T. Cacioppo, L. G. Tassinary (Eds.) Principles of psychophysiology: Physical, social, and inferential elements (pp. 295-324). New York: Cambridge University Press.

  Again, the chapter has been updated in later editions of the book (published under the title *Handbook of psychophysiology* starting with the second edition) and is worth checking out.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you. This is what they mention about Q-Sensor: "You can usually elicit SCR’s by startling a person with a sudden noise, flash of light, or puff of air. You can also ask them to tell everyone something significant happening in their life. Or you can give them tasks that might elicit cognitive, physical, or emotional effort: lots of mental math, jumping jacks, or something that makes them laugh. Some psychophysiologists elicit SCR’s in themselves by rapidly sniffing, or by holding their breath (but only very briefly)." (http://www.qsensortech.com/resources/getting-started/test-sensor/)  

---

