Emotions are experienced differently by individuals, and thus, it is important to account for individuals' experienced emotions to understand their physiological responses to emotional stimuli. The present study investigated the physiological responses to a fear-inducing stimulus and examined whether these responses can predict experienced fear. A total of 230 participants were presented with neutral and fear-inducing film clips, after which they self-rated their experienced emotions. Physiological measures (skin conductance level and response: SCL, SCR, heart rate: HR, pulse transit time: PTT, fingertip temperature: FT, and respiratory rate: RR) were recorded during the stimuli presentation. We examined the correlations between the physiological measures and the participants' experienced emotional intensity, and performed a multiple linear regression to predict fear intensity based on the physiological responses. Of the participants, 92.5% experienced the fear emotion, and the average intensity was 5.95 on a 7-point Likert scale. Compared to the neutral condition, the SCL, SCR, HR, and RR increased significantly during the fear-inducing stimulus presentation whereas FT and PTT decreased significantly. Fear intensity correlated positively with SCR and HR and negatively with SCL, FT, PTT, and RR. The multiple linear regression demonstrated that fear intensity was predicted by a combination of SCL, SCR, HR, FT, and RR. Our findings indicate that the physiological responses to experiencing fear are associated with cholinergic, sympathetic, and α-adrenergic vascular activation as well as myocardial β-sympathetic excitation, and support the use of multimodal physiological signals for quantifying emotions.

中文翻译：

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从对恐惧诱导刺激的多峰生理反应预测个体的经历恐惧。

个体对情感的体验不同，因此，重要的是要考虑个体的情感，以了解其对情感刺激的生理反应。本研究调查了对恐惧诱发刺激的生理反应，并检查了这些反应是否可以预测经历的恐惧。总共向230位参与者展示了中立和诱发恐惧的影片剪辑，之后他们对自己的经历进行了自我评估。在刺激过程中记录了生理指标（皮肤电导水平和反应：SCL，SCR，心率：HR，脉搏传播时间：PTT，指尖温度：FT和呼吸频率：RR）。我们研究了生理指标与参与者经历的情绪强度之间的相关性，并进行了多元线性回归，以根据生理反应预测恐惧强度。在参与者中，有92.5％的人经历了恐惧情绪，在7点李克特量表上的平均强度为5.95。与中性状态相比，在引起恐惧的刺激过程中，SCL，SCR，HR和RR显着增加，而FT和PTT显着下降。恐惧强度与SCR和HR呈正相关，与SCL，FT，PTT和RR呈负相关。多元线性回归表明，恐惧强度可以通过SCL，SCR，HR，FT和RR的组合来预测。我们的研究结果表明，对恐惧的生理反应与胆碱能，交感神经和α-肾上腺素能血管激活以及心肌β-交感神经兴奋有关，