University Honors

Cognitive and physical activities often interact with arousal in our daily lives. As anexample, a reaction of fear triggered by visual identification of a dangerous object or situationmay elicit a stress response that prepares the body to fight or flee. The proposed study thereforeconsiders arousal to stimuli in relation to motor actions. Specifically, it investigates whetherphysical exertion affects arousal. Physical exertion is experimentally induced with a hand griptask in which participants squeeze a hand dynamometer with exerted grip force proportional totheir physical strength. Arousal level is assessed with a pictorial assessment task in whichparticipants report the arousal level of images on a 9-point scale. It is hypothesized that arousalratings with the concurrent hand grip task will increase with exerted handgrip force. This study issignificant because it will examine whether arousal is connected to physical action in our dailylives.