Electrodermal Lability and Individual Differences in Simultaneous Monitoring and Tracking

Abstract

Electrodermal (galvanic skin) responses conveniently index sympathetic arousal. Indivduals with high levels of resting electrodermal activity are designated “labiles,” while those with low levels, “stabiles.” Labiles appear resistant to performance decrement over time in vigilance tasks. Thus, increased electrodermal responsivity may represent enhanced attentional capacity during such tasks. The responses of 10 labiles and 10 stabiles were collected during a simple reaction time task and under single and dual task monitoring and tracking conditions. Subjects monitored an automatic tracking task for dynamic system failures. Tracking was the Critical Task with a subcritical level of instability. The reaction time data paralleled the previously reported findings of inferior performance for stabiles. The data for complex single and dual task conditions did not reveal a similar trend. Generally, stabiles performed better. The pattern of these results suggests that the proposed selective enhancement associated with electrodermal lability is only adaptive for tasks that require or profit from focused attention.