Galvanic Skin Response

In depression and stupor, galvanic reactions are low because attention is poor and associations are inhibited. In alcoholism and in the euphoric stage of general paralysis, reactions are high because of greater excitability. In dementia, reactions are practically nil because of the lack of associations.

Jung systematizes GSR findings across clinical populations, establishing that galvanic reactivity is a function of attentional and associative capacity rather than a simple index of arousal.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904thesis

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the recollection of some fear, fright, or joy, in general any kind of strong emotion, produced the same result… ordinary abstract mental exercise, such as computation, does not affect the galvanometer unless the exercise be accompanied by exertion.

Jung, drawing on Tarchanoff, argues that GSR deflections index affective rather than purely cognitive activity, distinguishing emotion from abstract intellectual effort as the operative variable.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904thesis

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the galvanometer indicates only acute affective conditions, and not the more lasting intellectual after-effects, these latter being often well registered by reaction-time and pneumograph.

Jung delimits the epistemological scope of the GSR, positioning it as a detector of acute affect rather than enduring cognitive disturbance, which requires complementary measures.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904thesis

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Change in resistance is brought about either by saturation of the epidermis with sweat, or by simple filling of the sweat-gland canals or perhaps also by intracellular stimulation… The path for the centrifugal stimulation in the sweat-gland system would seem to lie in the sympathetic nervous system.

Jung reviews the competing physiological mechanisms underlying GSR phenomena, tracing their centrifugal pathway through the sympathetic nervous system while acknowledging unresolved anomalies.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904thesis

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we wanted to determine first of all whether patients such as Elliot could still generate skin conductance responses… all of our subjects with frontal lobe damage could elicit skin conductance responses under the experimental conditions just as well as did normals.

Damasio demonstrates that frontal-lobe-damaged patients retain intact GSR machinery under standard eliciting conditions, isolating the deficit to the deployment of somatic signals in decision-making rather than to the response mechanism itself.

Damasio, Antonio R., Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, 1994thesis

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Early psychophysiologists, such as Chester Darrow, proposed continuity between cortical activation measured through electroencephalography (EEG) and sympathetic arousal measured by the galvanic skin resistance response on the hands.

Porges historicizes the GSR within the arousal paradigm, identifying its foundational role as a peripheral indicator of central nervous system state in early psychophysiology.

Porges, Stephen W., The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation, 2011supporting

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oscillations of the galvanic mirror that cannot be accounted for by any movement of the hands or body, by any respiratory change, or any conscious thought or association. We have therefore attributed them to the indefinite feeling caused by some still unconscious complex.

Jung interprets spontaneous GSR fluctuations during quiet periods as somatic signatures of unconscious complexes, extending the instrument’s reach below the threshold of reportable experience.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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The reaction non-alcoholic indicates a very individual complex of ideas. And a very strong feeling seems to be attached to the fact that he is a teetotaler… This association, which distinctly indicates the idea of being drunk, is again accompanied by a rising of the curve.

Jung demonstrates in a clinical case how GSR curve elevations correlate with stimulus-words that activate affectively charged personal complexes, here organized around alcohol and shame.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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the height of the galvanic curve gradually decreases in the second and fourth sentences… The gradual decrease in the height of the galvanic curve is to be expected and can be explained by the gradual fading out of the affect.

Jung observes the temporal decay of GSR amplitude across repeated stimuli, interpreting the diminution as a direct physiological correlate of affect dissipation.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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Galvanometer curves with short reaction-times average in Series III 4.1 mm… Series I. Probable average of reaction-times in associations with unusually high galvanometer curves 2.2 sec.

Jung’s quantitative data reveals an inverse relationship between GSR amplitude and reaction time, suggesting that emotionally weighted associations both activate the galvanometer more strongly and require longer processing.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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All of these figures are in perfect accord with our hypothesis… the constellation does not change much later on… most of the galvanic curves were reduced to zero.

Jung’s serial data shows that emotionally significant associations produce high GSR amplitudes on first presentation that diminish across repetitions, confirming the affective-constellation model.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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Part Il (the falling weight) caused strong reactions in the normal. The pneumographic measurements for two cases giving no galvanic reactions are…

Jung’s comparative data from abnormal subjects shows that demented patients produce virtually no galvanic reactions even to strong physical stimuli, validating the association between GSR and associative capacity.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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the differences in respiratory changes are much greater in cases of higher galvanic reactions… there was no regular relation between the height of the galvanic reactions and the individual bodily resistance at the beginning of the experiment.

Jung demonstrates that GSR amplitude correlates with respiratory changes during emotional stimulation but not with baseline somatic resistance, underscoring its psychological rather than purely constitutional determination.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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the threat with the weight raised the curve to over fifty-nine because the subject thought that the weight would actually fall in this experiment, whereas before it was a threat only.

Jung shows that cognitive appraisal — specifically the subject’s belief about threat reality — modulates GSR amplitude, implicating psychological meaning as a mediating variable.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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every reaction is accompanied by a galvanometer movement is due to the emotion of attention which accompanies each reaction and is great enough to produce notable physical changes.

Jung identifies attentional affect as a baseline contributor to all galvanic deflections in word-association experiments, distinguishing this from complex-specific emotional surges.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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The galvanic curves are much higher than the average in all three series for… a great readiness of the association to appear fully on the first stimulus, so that the constellation does not change much later on.

Jung notes that certain complexes exhaust their galvanic signature on first elicitation, implying that the emotional constellation is fixed and does not reorganize under repeated testing.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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Irving Alexander and Arthur Adlerstein who tested the GSR of a large number of children, ages five to sixteen, who were exposed to a series of death-related words interspersed among a series of neutral words… the young children (and the adolescents) had a much greater emotional response to death-related words than had the latency-aged subjects.

Yalom cites GSR research to establish that death anxiety operates below conscious awareness in young children and adolescents, lending empirical grounding to his depth-psychological claims about unconscious death concerns.

Yalom, Irvin D., Existential Psychotherapy, 1980supporting

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Fere, carrying a current through a subject with various sensory stimuli, made the following observation: ‘Il se produit alors une deviation brusque de l’aiguille’

Jung traces the historical lineage of GSR measurement to Féré’s early experiments, situating his own psychophysical methodology within a prior tradition of empirical psychophysiology.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904supporting

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MY FIRST APPROACH in investigating the somatic-marker hypothesis involved the use of autonomic nervous system responses, in a series of studies I undertook with Daniel Tranel, a psycho-physiologist and experimental neuropsychologist.

Damasio frames skin conductance measurement as the methodological entry point into his somatic-marker hypothesis, establishing autonomic response as the empirical proxy for emotional signaling in decision-making research.

Damasio, Antonio R., Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, 1994supporting

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The galvanometric changes were noted by the apparatus described above. The respiration was recorded by means of a Marey pneumograph attached to the thorax.

Jung describes the experimental apparatus combining galvanometer and pneumograph, establishing the multimodal psychophysiological methodology within which GSR data was collected.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904aside

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Series 1. Arithmetical average of the galvanic curves… Only the reaction-time here is what we expect.

Jung presents tabular data for a clinical case in which galvanic curve averages diverge from prediction while reaction-time remains concordant, illustrating the dissociation between the two psychophysiological indicators.

Jung, C. G., Experimental Researches, 1904aside

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