A continuous measure of phasic electrodermal activity

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2010.04.028Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

Electrodermal activity is characterized by the superposition of what appear to be single distinct skin conductance responses (SCRs). Classic trough-to-peak analysis of these responses is impeded by their apparent superposition. A deconvolution approach is proposed, which separates SC data into continuous signals of tonic and phasic activity. The resulting phasic activity shows a zero baseline, and overlapping SCRs are represented by predominantly distinct, compact impulses showing an average duration of less than 2 s. A time integration of the continuous measure of phasic activity is proposed as a straightforward indicator of event-related sympathetic activity. The quality and benefit of the proposed measure is demonstrated in an experiment with short interstimulus intervals as well as by means of a simulation study. The advances compared to previous decomposition methods are discussed.

Keywords

EDA
SC
GSR
Deconvolution
Decomposition
Phasic
Tonic
Integration
Sudomotor activity

Cited by (0)

1

Tel.: +49 431 880 4870; fax: +49 431 880 1829.