Scholarly Communications Project

Document Type:Master's Thesis
Name:Brian Vincent Shenal
Email address:bshenal@vt.edu
URN:1998/00281
Title:The Dynamic Cerebral Laterality Effect: Group Differences in Hostility, Cardiovascular Regulation, and Sensory Recognition
Degree:Master of Science
Department:Psychology
Committee Chair: David W. Harrison
Chair's email:dwh@vt.edu
Committee Members:Richard A. Winett
Martha A. Bell
Keywords:Hostility, Lateralization, Stress, Asymmetry, Tachistoscope, Dichotic Listening, Cardiovascular Disease
Date of defense:April 8, 1998
Availability:Release the entire work for Virginia Tech access only.
After one year release worldwide only with written permission of the student and the advisory committee chair.

Abstract:

THE DYNAMIC CEREBRAL LATERALITY EFFECT: GROUP DIFFERENCES IN HOSTILITY, CARDIOVASCCULAR REGULATION, AND SENSORY RECOGNITION By Brian Vincent Shenal David W. Harrison, Ph.D., Chairman Psychology (ABSTRACT) This experiment tested two hypotheses linking the right cerebral regulation of hostility and cardiovascular arousal. First, replication of previous research supporting heightened cardiovascular (systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate) reactivity among high hostile participants was attempted. Second, dynamic variations in functional cerebral asymmetry in response to pain (cold pressor) and emotional linguistic processing was measured. Low- and high-hostile participants were identified using the Cook Medley Hostility Scale (CMHS). All participants completed either the negative affective verbal learning test (Experiment 1) or the cold pressor paradigm (Experiment 2). Cardiovascular measures (SBP, DBP, and HR) were recorded and either dichotic listening procedures (Experiment 1) or tachistoscopic lexical recognition procedures (Experiment 2) were administered before and after the stressor. The primary finding of this research was greater left cerebral activation (decreased cardiovascular reactivity) following the dichotic phoneme listening and the tachistoscopic lexical recognition tasks and greater right cerebral activation following pain (cold pressor) and emotionally linguistic (affective verbal learning) stressors.

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