Quantification of Emotional Reaction Based on Cross-Correlation between Pulse Wave Transmission Time and Heart Rate in the Mayer Wave-Band

Abstract

Mayer wave(10s period or 0.1Hz fluctuation) included in heart rate variability and blood pressure variability appears apparently in the resting state. On the other hand, it can be predicted that a strong emotional reaction may affect the relationship between these variabilities. This prediction suggests that the human emotional reaction can be quantified by the maximum correlation coefficient ρ_max between heart rate and blood pressure whose frequency components are limited to the Mayer wave-band. However, the conventional method of obtaining ρ_max needs a bulky and expensive device for measuring continuous blood pressure. In this study, a smaller and cheaper device for measuring pulse wave transmission time(PTT) has been developed. This paper has shown that the PTT can give ρ_max instead of blood pressure and that ρ_max obtained by the PTT may significantly reflect the emotional reaction on the basis of an experiment using nine healthy subjects with nine self-produced devices in which pictures were presented to the subjects to induce their emotional reactions.