Measuring Heart Rate to Make Inferences About

LearningGillenwaters & Van Nuland

Human Heart (n.d.). Licensed under Public Domain.

What is Heart Rate?

♥ Simply put, heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute, otherwise known as your pulse.

♥ Heart rate is usually calculated as the number of beats per minute(bpm).

♥ Resting heart rate ranges from 60-100 beats per minute.

♥ Athletes tend to have very low resting heart rates, while overweight people tend to have very high resting heart rates.

Yodiyim. (n.d.). 3D Illustration of Heart.

Heart Anatomy♥ The human heart is composed of cardiac muscle and has four

chambers. The right and left atria collect blood while the right and left ventricles pump blood (Prajent, 2011).

♥ Each heartbeat originates in the sinoatrial node located at the posterior wall of the right atrium of the heart (Stauss, 2003).

♥ The atrioventricular node receives and slows the electrical impulse, leading the atria to contract (Cleveland Clinic, 2018).

♥ The His-Perjinke network is a pathway of fibers that conducts the impulse to the ventricles, which contracts and pumps blood throughout the body (Cleveland Clinic).

Hanns-Frieder Michler (2017). Chronic myocarditis (inflammation).

Spread of Excitation. (n.d).

How do We Measure Heart Rate?

♥ An Electrocardiograph measures the electrical impulses generated by the heart (known as depolarization, followed by repolarization), which causes the heart to contract, pumping blood throughout the body (Prajent, 2011).

♥ Repolarization is the relaxation of the heart muscle.

♥ Electrical nodes are placed on the left ankle and both wrists to sense these impulses.

Edan SE-301 B Electrocardiograph, (n.d).

Einthoven’s Triangle

Edan SE-301 B Electrocardiograph, (n.d).

Today I Found Out (2011). EKG.

� The P wave and QRS complex are depolarization waves.

� The voltage of the QRS ranges from about 1 to 1.5 millivolts from the crest of the R wave, to the depths of the S wave.

� The T wave is a repolarization wave.

� The T wave is produced as the ventricles recover.

� The atria contracts after the P wave, pumping blood into the ventricles.

Today I Found Out (2011). EKG.

Potential Abnormalities:

♥ Missing Waves

♥ Long or Tall waves

♥ Non-Rhythmical Waves

♥ Inverted Waves

Today I Found Out (2011). EKG.

Potential Abnormalities:

♥ A lack of P waves may indicate atrial fibrillation.

♥ If PR Interval is too long, it is known as a first degree block

♥ A QRS longer than .12 seconds may be caused by a bundle branch delay.

♥ A heart attack occurs when the ST segment becomes elevated.

Factors that Influence Heart Rate

♥ These periodical action potentials are fairly constant, but can be modulated by factors that cause variability, including temperature, physical activity, medication, emotions, and even cognition (Stauss).

♥ For instance, cooling the heart causes it to slow, while a fever increases heart rate (Stauss).

♥ Usually heat and humidity will only raise the heart rate by about 5-10 beats per minute (American Heart Association, n.d).

Kovac & Mizisin (2007). Human Cardiac Muscle

Autonomic Input to the Heart

The Measure of Heart Rate in Research

♥ Typically heart rate is measured in a within-subjects design.

♥ In order to use heart rate for research, we must compare the heart rate during the time the stimuli was presented to a baseline.

♥ To confirm the baseline, the stimuli is often repeated to eliminate any experimental effects.

Anatomical Heart, 1984. Licensed under public domain.

Potential Confounds in Heart Rate Research♥ What had the participant done

that day?

♥ What is the participant doing during testing?

♥ Is the participants heart rate very slow?

♥ Is the heart rate elevated?

Chiquet, J. (1701-1768). Mirror of the Sinful. Licensed under public domain.

An Organizational Framework for Psychophysiological Research (Jennings, 1986)

Is autonomic change an indicator of attention?

Does autonomic change facilitate attention?

Does autonomic change regulate attention?

Shukayai, A. (1772). Analysis of Cadavers [Woodcut]. Licensed under public domain.

Functional Properties of Attention (Jennings, 1986)Intensity

Duration

Temporal Concentration

Breadth of Attention

Structural and Functional Limitations

Lightbulb. (n.d.).

What Can Heart Rate Tell Us?

Lacey, et al. (1963) found that heart rate variability is associated with changes in mental tasks (as cited by Van der Molen, Somsen, & Orlebeke, 1985).

Deceleration of the heart facilitates attention in both the intake and output of information processing (Lacey & Lacey, 1974, as cited by Van der Molen, Somsen, Orlebeke, 1985).

The act of attending may serve to allocate energy to support processing of information by changing cardiac function (Jennings, 1986).

Spratt, A. (2017). Books. Licensed under Creative Commons.

What Can Heart Rate Tell Us?

Richards and Casey (1991) found that vagal firing in infants increased during sustained attention, and decreased when attention is lost.

Mitchell (2005) found that the direction and trend of changes in heart rate is associated with visual attending behaviors during discrimination learning.

Quintana et al. (2012) found that heart rate variability is a potential marker for the ability to respond to social and emotional cues.

Spratt, A. (2017). Books. Licensed under Creative Commons.

ReferencesAmerican Ananatomical Heart. (1984). Open Clip Art Library. Retrieved from http://www.publicdomainfiles.com/show_file.php?id=13939501819528

Chiquet, J. (1701-1768). Mirror of the Sinful [Woodcut]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chiquet,_Jacques_-_Miroir_de_la_p%C3%A9cheresse_(titre_factice).jpg Cleveland Clinic. (2018). Heart beat: Heart and blood vessels, how does the heart beat. Retrieved from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/17064-heart-beat

Droual, R. (n.d.). Chapter 13 Cardiac Function Course Notes: From Stanfield, C. Principles of Human Physiology. Pearson. Retrieved from http://droualb.faculty.mjc.edu/Course%20Materials/Physiology%20101/Chapter%20Notes/Fall%202011/chapter_13%20Fall%202011.htm

Edan SE-301 B Electrocardiograph, 3 channel ECG. [Example Output]. Retrieved from http://www.medys.be/edan-se-301-b-electrocardiograph-3-channel-ecg.html

Hanns-Frieder Michler. Light micrograph of human cardiac muscle with chronic myocarditis (inflammation). Science Photo Library/Getty Images. Retrieved from http://time.com/4916414/drug-inflammation-heart-attack-cancer/

ReferencesHealthy Heart [Illustration]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://theglobalhealthnews.com/biomedical-engineers-develop-heart-patch-ideal-cardiac-patients/

Jennings, J. R. (1986). Bodily changes during attending. In M. G. H. Coles, E. Dunchin, and S. W. Porges (Eds.), In Psychophysiology: Systems, processes, and applications (pp. 268-289). New York: Guilford.

Kawaguchi, S. (1777). Kaishi hen. Retrieved from https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/kawaguchi_home.html

Lacey, B. C., & Lacey, J. I. (1974). Studies of heart rate and other bodily processes in sensorimotor behavior.

Kovac, A. & Mizisin, A. (2007). Muscular tissue and cardiovascular system: Slide 43, Human Cardiac Muscle. Retrieved from https://meded.ucsd.edu/hist-img-bank/chapter_3/Slides_43_44_45_cardiac/pages/a.2.43.1.2.htm

Lightbulb [Graphic]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/how-to-dispose-of-light-bulbs/

Mitchell, D. W. (2005). A heart rate model of visual discrimination learning. Paper presented at the annual association for Behavior Analysis Conference, Chicago, IL.

ReferencesPrajent. (2011). How to read a normal ECG (Electrocardiogram). Hubpages. Retrieved from https://hubpages.com/health/How-to-read-a-normal-ECGElectrocardiogram

Quintana, D. S., Guastella, A. J., Outhred, T., Hickie, I. B., & Kemp, A. H. (2012). Heart rate variability is associated with emotion recognition: direct evidence for a relationship between the autonomic nervous system and social cognition. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 86(2), 168-172.

Shukayi, A. (1772). Analysis of Cadavers. Retrieved from Spread of Excitation [Illustration]. (n.d). Retrieved from https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/kawaguchi_home.html

Spratt, A. (2017). Books. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/lIWF2uHxs0Q

Spread of Excitation [Illustration]. (n.d). Retrieved from http://droualb.faculty.mjc.edu/Course%20Materials/Physiology%20101/Chapter%20Notes/Fall%202011/chapter_13%20Fall%202011.htm

Stauss, H. M. (2003). Heart rate variability. American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 285(5), R927-R931.

ReferencesRichards, J. E. & Casey, B. J. (1991). Heart rate variability during attention phases in young infants. Psychophysiology, 28(1), 43-53.

Spread of Excitation [Illustration]. (n.d). Retrieved from http://droualb.faculty.mjc.edu/Course%20Materials/Physiology%20101/Chapter%20Notes/Fall%202011/chapter_13%20Fall%202011.htm

Today I Found Out (2011). EKG. [Illustration]. Retrieved from http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/10/how-to-read-an-ekg-electrocardiograph/

Van der Molen, R. J., Somsen, M., Orlebeke, J. F. (1985). Advances in Psychophysiology, 1, 1-88.

Yodiyim. (n.d.). 3D Illustration of Heart, Medical Concept. [Illustration]. (2008). Retrieved from https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/3d-illustration-of-heart-medical-concept-gm530199842-93378379