We present a series of experiments that explore the boundary conditions for how emotional arousal influences height estimates. Four experiments are presented, which investigated the influence of context, situation-relevance, intensity, and attribution of arousal on height estimates. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the environmental context to signal either danger (viewing a height from above) o...

During obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), systemic (Psa) and pulmonary (Ppa) arterial pressures acutely increase after apnea termination, whereas left and right ventricular stroke volumes (SV) reach a nadir. In a canine model (n = 6), we examined the effects of arousal, parasympathetic blockade (atropine 1 mg/kg iv), and sleep state on cardiovascular responses to OSA. In the absence of arousal, SV ...

Men's, more than women's, sexual responses may include a coordination of several physiological indices in order to build their sexual arousal to relevant targets. Here, for the first time, genital arousal and pupil dilation to sexual stimuli were simultaneously assessed. These measures corresponded more strongly with each other, subjective sexual arousal, and self-reported sexual orientation in...

The authors propose a practice-specificity-based model of arousal for achieving peak performance. The study included 37 healthy male physical education students whom they randomly assigned to a high-arousal (n = 19) or low-arousal group (n = 18). To manipulate participants’ level of arousal, the authors used motivational techniques. They used heart rate and the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (R...

Physiological theories may be important in the development and maintenance of social phobia in youth. A limited literature base indicates that youth with social phobia experience increases in objective physiological arousal during social-evaluative situations and are more aware of such increases compared to nonanxious youth. Recent research suggests that youth with social phobia also evidence h...

Valence and arousal has been found to influence memory performance, both independently and in interaction with each other. In order to conduct studies measuring the effect of valence on memory while controlling for arousal, we aimed to develop a validated list of Swedish words that were all rated medium on arousal, while rated neutral or negative on valence. 131 participants rated 50 words each...

Arousal is an important defense against hypoxia during sleep. Rat pups exhibit progressive arousal impairment (habituation) with multiple hypoxia exposures. The mechanisms are unknown. The medullary raphe (MR) is involved in autonomic functions, including sleep, and receives abundant GABAergic inputs. We hypothesized that inhibiting MR neurons with muscimol, a GABA(A) receptor agonist, or preve...

This study investigated sexual coercion (perpetration and victimisation) in women. Women (N = 151) aged 18–63 years (M 23.34, SD 8.80) completed standardised questionnaires measuring (nonverbal arousal, emotional manipulation deception, exploitation of the intoxicated), personality disorder traits (Borderline Histrionic), love styles (Eros, Ludus, Storge, Pragma, Mania, Agape), rejection sensit...

Some suggest that arousal is the essential element needed to engage the amygdala. However, the role of arousal in the larger emotional memory network may differ depending on the valence (positive, negative) of the to-be-remembered information. The goal of the current study was to determine the influence of arousal-based changes in amygdalar connectivity for positive and negative items. Particip...

Based on analytic techniques that collapse data into a single average value, it has been reported that women lack category specificity and show genital sexual arousal to a large range of sexual stimuli including those that both match and do not match their self-reported sexual interests. These findings may be a methodological artifact of the way in which data are analyzed. This study examined w...