Editing Psychophysiology (section)

==Emotions as example of psychophysiological studies==
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Psychophysiology studies multiple aspects of behavior, and emotions are the most common example. 
It has long been recognized that emotional episodes are partly constituted by physiological responses.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Williams|first1=James|title=What is an Emotion?|journal=Mind|date=1884|volume=34|issue=2|pages=188–205}}</ref> Early work done linking emotions to psychophysiology started with research on mapping consistent autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses to discrete emotional states. For example, anger might be constituted by a certain set of physiological responses, such as increased cardiac output and high diastolic blood pressure, which would allow us to better understand patterns and predict emotional responses.

Some studies were able to detect consistent patterns of ANS responses that corresponded to specific emotions under certain contexts, like an early study by Paul Ekman and colleagues in 1983 "Emotion-specific activity in the autonomic nervous system was generated by constructing facial prototypes of emotion muscle by muscle and by reliving past emotional experiences. The autonomic activity produced distinguished not only between positive and negative emotions, but also among negative emotions".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Paul|first1=Ekman|last2=Levenson|first2=Robert|last3=Friesen|first3=Wallace|title=Autonomic Nervous System Activity Distinguishes Among Emotions|journal=Science|date=1983|volume=221|issue=4616|pages=1208–1210|doi=10.1126/science.6612338|pmid=6612338|bibcode=1983Sci...221.1208E|s2cid=15285913 }}</ref> 
However, as more studies were conducted, more variability was found in ANS responses to discrete emotion inductions, not only among individuals but also over time in the same individuals, and greatly between social groups.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Cacioppo|first1=John|last2=Berntson|first2=Gary|last3=Larsen|first3=Jeff|last4=Poehlmann|first4=Kirsten|last5=Ito|first5=Tiffany|title=The Psychophysiology of Emotion|journal=Handbook of Emotions|date=2000|volume=2|pages=173–191}}</ref>

Some of these differences can be attributed to variables like induction technique, context of the study, or classification of stimuli, which can alter a perceived scenario or emotional response. However, it was also found that features of the participant could also alter ANS responses. Factors such as basal level of arousal at the time of experimentation or between-test recovery, learned or conditioned responses to certain stimuli, range and maximal level of effect of ANS action, and individual attentiveness can all alter physiological responses in a lab setting.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Stemmler|first1=Gerhard|last2=Wacker|first2=Jan|title=Personality, Emotion, and Individual Differences in Physiological Responses|journal=Biological Psychology|date=2010|volume=84|issue=3|pages=541–551|doi=10.1016/j.biopsycho.2009.09.012|pmid=19800934|s2cid=24408358}}</ref> Even supposedly discrete emotional states fail to show specificity. For example, some emotional typologists consider fear to have subtypes, which might involve fleeing or freezing, both of which can have distinct physiological patterns and potentially distinct neural circuitry.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Gross|first1=Cornelius|last2=Canteras|first2=Newton|title=The Many Paths to Fear|journal=Nature Reviews Neuroscience|date=2012|volume=13|issue=9|pages=651–658|doi=10.1038/nrn3301|pmid=22850830|s2cid=5319555}}</ref> As such no definitive correlation can be drawn linking specific autonomic patterns to discrete emotions, causing emotion theorists to rethink classical definitions of emotions.