Interpretation of hemodynamic reaction pattern during mental stress based on attention-affect model

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It is well-known that mean blood pressure (MBP) is usually elevated during mental stress ; and according to Ohm's law, this elevation is attributed mainly to increases in cardiac output (CO) or to those in total peripheral resistance (TPR). They are referred to as cardiac-dominant (Cd : CO↑→MBP↑) and vascular-dominant (Vd : TPR↑→MBP↑) reaction patterns, respectively. It has been insisted that active and passive coping would contribute differently to provoking the Cd and Vd reaction patterns. However, there have been a fairly substantial amount of previous findings contradictory to the active-passive coping model. In the present research, it is assumed that during mental stress, the Vd reaction pattern is provoked when attention is relatively heightened compared with affect, whereas the Cd reaction pattern is provoked when the reverse is true. Four studies have been conducted on in order to demonstrate the superiority of attention-affect model to the active-passive coping model. In the … More first study, Attention-Affect Check List ‘AACL) was developed for the purpose of enabling individual facing mental stress to assess attention and affect. Following factor analyzing and reliability testing, four factors with four items each were extracted, including attention and affect. In the second study, two groups of subjects underwent mental arithmetic in an active or a passive coping condition. The active coping group exhibited the Cd reaction pattern ; and albeit less obviously, the passive coping group showed the same pattern. In the third study, active and passive coping situations were set up by preparing two mental stresses.(one expected to heighten attention and the other expected to heighten affect : both active coping conditions) and their yoked controls (both passive ones). Attention-affect ratio was quantified, based on AACL data. Albeit with some reservations, correlation analysis suggested that the results were in line with our mode. In the fourth study, the possibility that attentive and affective neural networks could exist differently was examined. Although preliminary, we have been getting positive evidence of this possibility using fMRI technique. Less