Biological Psychology 6 (1978) 259-266 0 North-Holland Publishing Company 259 PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE PATTERNING IN SHORT- AND LONG-TERM HEART RATE CONTROL TRAINING * ROBERT J. GATCHEL ** and GARY G. LOTT University of Texas, Arlington, Texas 76019, U.S.A. Accepted for publication 25 May 1978 The present investigation assessed the physiological response patterns which accompany heart-rate control performance, both early and late in training. Six subjects were employed who received six heart-rate control training sessions, half of which were speeding sessions and half of which were slowing. Heart rate, skin resistance, frontalis EMG, systolic and diastolic blood pres- sure, and respiration rate were continuously recorded throughout all training sessions. Results indicated that the physiological response topography during heart-rate control performance changes from early to late training. Moreover, the changes are different for speeding and slow- ing performance, suggesting the involvement of different underlying physiological mechanisms in the two tasks. 1. Introduction Recently, a number of investigators have stressed the potential importance of response pattern analysis in both the clinical and research utilization of biofeedback procedures (Cohen, 1974. Schwartz, 1974). Indeed, Obrist (1974) argues that an appreciation of the basic interrelationships between individual biological responses processes is critical to the assessment of biofeedback procedures and their utility. Several efforts have been made to evaluate the extent to which specific reqponse patterns (e.g., heart rate by blood pressure) reflect both psychological and physio- logical constraints and control processes (cf. Schwartz, 1974). Few studies, how- ever, have demonstrated the individual physiological pattern which emerge as learned control of a response, such as heart rate, develops (Miller, 1974). Most of these recent investigations have been attempts to teach the voluntary control of combinations of responses, rather than attempts to directly detect “normally occur- ring” response patterns produced by subjects learning heart-rate control. A direct * This research was supported in part by a grant to the first author from the University of Texas Organized Research Fund. ** Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert J. Gatchel, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Arlington, Texas 76019.