The Measurement of Individual Differences in Autonomic Balance

Abstract

The following physiol. tests were made: heart rate and sinus arrhythmia, salivary output, palmar and non-palmar sweating, respiration rate, reclining systolic blood pressure, the difference between standing and reclining pressures, and the latency and persistence of red dermographia as elicited by the permographometer of Patik and Weiss. The subjects were 62 elementary school children of both sexes between the ages of six and eleven years. A weighted test battery-is described which "makes possible the measurement of a variable in children in which the majority of them show considerable stability over a year''s time." It seems indicated that "those children with high autonomic scores are less emotional, more controlled in behavior, and more shy than those with low scores.".