title: The effect of a threatening context upon motivation and task-induced physiological changes.
abstract: The effect of a threatening context upon tonic task-induced physiological changes was tested in an experiment where 14 male subjects performed a continuous perceptual motor task for 150 seconds, once with and once without threat of aversive electric shock (counterbalanced order). Results indicated that task-irrelevant muscular tension increased and skin temperature decreased over the course of a task, and these gradients were steeper with threat than for the no-threat treatment. Initial heart-rate increase was marked for the threat condition. For respiration, a trend parallel to muscular gradients emerged with no-threat as contrasted with a parallel respiratory-cardiac activation with threat. Subjects' ratings on items reflecting self-perception responded to the threat manipulation, but ratings on items reflecting task perception remained unaffected.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D004597:Electroshock; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D009042:Motivation; D009048:Motor Skills; D011930:Reaction Time