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I will be working on the Heart Rate Variability (HRV), in particular to the mental and social aspects for which it can be applied. I hope to establish a better understanding of how HRV can be better understood and applied.

Heart rate variability (HRV) is the measure of the inconsistent gaps between each heartbeat and is used as an index for different aspects of psychology. HRV is reported to be an index of the influence of both the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous systems. Different aspects of psychology represent the balance of these two influences. For example, high HRV is shown proper emotion regulation, decision-making, and attention, and low HRV reflects the opposite. The parasympathetic nervous system works quickly to decrease heart rate, while the SNS works slowly to increase heart rate, and this is important because it applies to the different psychological states mentioned above. For example, someone with high HRV may reflect increased parasympathetic activity, and someone with low HRV may reflect increased sympathetic activity. Next, we will now explain how HRV can be an index of these psychological states.

Emotions stem from the time and impact of a situation on a person. Our ability to regulate our emotions is essential for our social environments and our well-being. HRV has provided a window to the physiological components associated with our emotional regulation. HRV has been shown to reflect emotional regulation at two different levels while resting and while completing a task. Research suggests that a person with higher HRV while resting can provide more appropriate emotional responses compared to those that have low HRV at rest. Empirical research found that HRV can reflect better emotional regulation by those with higher resting HRV, particularly with negative emotions. When completing a task, HRV is subject to change, especially when people need to regulate their emotions. Most importantly, individual differences are related to the ability to regulate emotions. Not only is emotional regulation necessary, but so is attention.

Previous research has suggested that a large part of the attention regulation is due to the default inhibitory properties of the prefrontal cortex. Top-down processes from the prefrontal cortex provide parasympathetic influences, and if for some reason, those influences are active, attention can suffer. For example, researchers have suggested that HRV can index attention. For example, a group of researchers found that groups with high anxiety and low HRV have poor attention. In line with this research, it has also been suggested that increased attention has been linked to high HRV and increased vagus nerve activity. The vagus nerve activity reflects the physiological modulation of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. The activity behind the prefrontal cortex and the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system can influence heart activity. However, people are not all affected the same. A systematic review of HRV and cognitive function suggested that resting HRV can predict individual differences in attentional performance. Even in psychological concepts such as attention, HRV can index individual differences. Furthermore, HRV has been able to index the role of attention and performance, supporting high HRV as a biomarker of increased attention and performance. Both emotion and attention can shed light on how HRV is used as an index for decision making.

Decision-making skills are found to be indexed by HRV in several studies. Previous research has suggested that both emotion and attention are linked to decision making; for example, poor decision making is linked to the inability to regulate or control emotions and attention and vice versa. Decision making is negatively affected by lower HRV and positively affected by higher levels of HRV. Most importantly, resting-state HRV was found to be a significant predictor of cognitive functions such as decision making. HRV, accompanied by a psychological state, such as anxiety, has been found to lead to poor decisions. For example, a group of researchers found that low HRV was an index of higher uncertainty leading to poor decision-making skills, especially those with higher levels of anxiety. HRV was also used to assess decision-making skills in a high-risk game and was found to be an index higher sympathetic activation (lower HRV) when making decisions involving risk. HRV can index psychological concepts, such as the ones outlined above, to assess the demand for the situations that people experience.

Price Comments
I think you need a more detailed plan at this point. What are some specific things that you are going to work on? I did see the work on the bibliography page but I think you need more of an overview of where this is going. Paul C Price (talk) 18:11, 28 October 2019 (UTC)