Heart rate variability impacts shoot/don't shoot errors under high cognitive load
Presentation Type
Abstract
Faculty Advisor
Robert Horn
Access Type
Event
Start Date
25-4-2025 9:00 AM
End Date
25-4-2025 9:59 AM
Description
We investigated how heart rate variability (HRV), an indicator of sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity, affects performance. While higher HRV is associated with better cognition, and harder cognitive tasks elicit greater HRV responses, research has not examined effects in tasks combining cognition and stress, such as the shoot/don’t-shoot (SDS) task. We expected participants with higher HRV to show better task performance, consistent with previous findings. We recorded HRV data for five minutes in 37 participants before and during an SDS video task in which participants responded using a laser hand-gun. The task was performed under normal cognitive load and increased load induced by processing a complex dispatch message. SDS task measures were shoot errors and fail-to-shoot errors. HRV measures included root mean squared successive differences (RMSSD), standard deviation of RR intervals (SDRR), and high (HF) and low frequency (LF) power. Participants made more shoot errors under high cognitive load (p<.01). Compared to resting, the SDS task induced higher heart rate and LF/HF ratio, and lower RMSSD, SDRR, and HF band scores (p<.001). The dispatch condition induced higher heart rate (p<.001) and LF/HF ratio (p<.05), and lower RMSSD (p<.05) than the no-dispatch condition. Under higher cognitive load, participants making more shoot errors had marginally higher RMSSD, SDRR, and LF, and lower HR, with moderately large effect sizes. The SDS task caused increased SNS activity, and the increase was exacerbated by additional cognitive load. Under this load, participants experiencing higher SNS activity made fewer shoot errors
Heart rate variability impacts shoot/don't shoot errors under high cognitive load
We investigated how heart rate variability (HRV), an indicator of sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity, affects performance. While higher HRV is associated with better cognition, and harder cognitive tasks elicit greater HRV responses, research has not examined effects in tasks combining cognition and stress, such as the shoot/don’t-shoot (SDS) task. We expected participants with higher HRV to show better task performance, consistent with previous findings. We recorded HRV data for five minutes in 37 participants before and during an SDS video task in which participants responded using a laser hand-gun. The task was performed under normal cognitive load and increased load induced by processing a complex dispatch message. SDS task measures were shoot errors and fail-to-shoot errors. HRV measures included root mean squared successive differences (RMSSD), standard deviation of RR intervals (SDRR), and high (HF) and low frequency (LF) power. Participants made more shoot errors under high cognitive load (p<.01). Compared to resting, the SDS task induced higher heart rate and LF/HF ratio, and lower RMSSD, SDRR, and HF band scores (p<.001). The dispatch condition induced higher heart rate (p<.001) and LF/HF ratio (p<.05), and lower RMSSD (p<.05) than the no-dispatch condition. Under higher cognitive load, participants making more shoot errors had marginally higher RMSSD, SDRR, and LF, and lower HR, with moderately large effect sizes. The SDS task caused increased SNS activity, and the increase was exacerbated by additional cognitive load. Under this load, participants experiencing higher SNS activity made fewer shoot errors
Comments
Poster presentation at the 2025 Student Research Symposium.