Temporal stability of the orienting-defence response pattern

The present study attempts to extend previous research showing differences in orienting (OR) and defence response (DR) elicitation between patients with various psychophysiological disorders and healthy controls, and even among individuals without disorders. This research seeks to determine whether differences in OR/DR pattern found among healthy subjects show temporal stability. Three experimental sessions involving psychophysiological assessment were carried out, with temporal intervals of three weeks between two consecutive sessions. In each of them, 44 subjects without disorder were assessed, establishing their OR/DR predominant pattern according to their reactions to seven sounds of mild intensity and innocuous features. The pattern was established according to the cardiac response to audio mild intensity stimuli being decelerative changes OR indexes and accelerative ones DR. Results show difference in the OR and DR elicitation among the subjects. Nevertheless, stability percentages in the patterns were not higher than those expected at random.