Evaluating Autonomic Parameters: The Role of Sleep ‎Duration in Emotional Responses to Music

It has been recognized that sleep has an important effect on emotion processing. The aim ‎of this study was to investigate the effect of previous night sleep duration on autonomic ‎responses to musical stimuli in different emotional contexts.‎ A frequency based measure of GSR, PR and ECG signals were examined in 35 healthy ‎students in three groups of oversleeping, lack of sleep and normal sleep. ‎ The results of this study revealed that regardless of the emotional context of the musical ‎stimuli (happy, relax, fear, and sadness), there was an increase in the maximum power of ‎GSR, ECG and PR during the music time compared to the rest time in all the three ‎groups. In addition, the higher value of these measures was achieved while the ‎participants listened to relaxing music. Statistical analysis of the extracted features ‎between each pair of emotional states revealed that the most significant differences ‎were attained for ECG signals. These differences were more obvious in the participants ‎with normal sleeping (p