Role of Gender in Autonomic Reactivity: Analysis of Heart Rate of Preschool Children During Videos with Different Emotional Content

RAMÍREZ, VERÓNICA ADRIANA; RUETTI, ELIANA

Congreso; 9th MindBrainBody Symposium 2022; 2022

Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences

Introduction: Emotions are complex phenomena that include changes at different levels of organization. Within these levels, the different autonomous measures have proven their usefulness in recent years to show the fluctuations resulting from emotional processes. Heart rate and its variation are particularly robust measures for evaluating these processes. The greater heart rate variation (range) implies greater emotional processing and reactivity. In the preschool years, both emotional processing and autonomic reactivity are in development, so it is of primary interest to study these phenomena at this stage. Several investigations established the importance of gender modulation of emotional processes, due to the different cultural treatment given to emotions in both genders. One of the most widely used methodologies today for the evaluation of emotional processes in children is emotion modulation through the viewing of short videos. For that, this paper aims to compare heart rate variation (range) between girls and boys after viewing short videos with different emotional content. Methods: A sample of 43 5-years-old children was formed. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two possible conditions (positive video or neutral video) and their heart rate was registered previously (baseline) and during the video watching. The interest variable was the heart rate range registered during the task. A 2x2 ANOVA was performed in order to examine the interaction between gender and video emotional content. Baseline heart rate was introduced as a covariable. Results: Results showed a greater heart rate range in positive condition than in neutral one. Also, girls presented a wider range than boys. However, no interaction was found between the two variables. Discussion: These results are consistent with the literature and illustrate the importance of including gender in studies about emotional processing. In addition, the viewing of videos is an emotional modulation paradigm that allows showing differences in the autonomous level.