Public Speaking

Biological Psychology 60 (2002) 37 – 49 www.elsevier.com/locate/biopsycho Anticipatory autonomic response to a public speaking task in women
The role of trait anxiety
Esperanza Gonzalez-Bono a, Luis Moya-Albiol a,
Alicia Salvador a,*, Eduvigis Carrillo b, Jorge Ricarte b,
Jesus Gomez-Amor b a Departamento de Psicobiologıa y Psicologıa Social, Facultad de Psicologıa, Uni6ersidad de Valencia,
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Area de Psicobiologıa, Apartado 22109, 46071 Valencia, Spain
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b
Departamento de Ciencias Morfologicas y Psicobiologıa, Facultad de Psicologıa,
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Uni6ersidad de Murcia, Area de Psicobiologıa, Campus Uni6ersitario de Espinardo,
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30100 Murcia, Spain
Received 27 November 2001; accepted 18 February 2002

Abstract
The aim of this research was to study anticipatory autonomic responses their relationship to trait anxiety. Twenty-three women prepared an evaluated speech (S-condition) and 22 women an evaluated essay (W-condition). Heart rate (HR), finger pulse volume (FPV) and skin conductance were recorded before, during and after preparation of the task and during task performance; state-anxiety was evaluated before and after the task. In the total sample, state-anxiety was higher in the S- than in W-condition and this anxiety increase was accompanied by FPV reductions. However, when the sample was split according to trait anxiety scores, HR during preparation and increases of state-anxiety were greater in S- than
W-condition in only in high-anxious women. Results suggest that specificity of anticipatory
HR response to a public speaking task in women is moderated by cognitive anxiety. © 2002
Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Anticipatory response; Cardiovascular; Skin conductance; Public speaking tasks; Evaluative threat * Corresponding author. Tel.: + 34-6-3864420; fax: + 34-6-3864668.
E-mail address: [e-mail] (A. Salvador).
0301-0511/02/$ - see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights

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