Cardiac autonomic activity predicts dominance in verbal over spatial reasoning tasks: results from a preliminary study

Abstract

The present study sought to determine whether autonomic activity is associated with dominance in verbal over spatial reasoning tasks. A group of 19 healthy adults who performed a verbal and spatial aptitude test was evaluated. Autonomic function was assessed by means of heart rate variability analysis, before and during the tasks. The results showed that a better relative performance in verbal over spatial reasoning tasks was associated with vagal prevalence in normal subjects.