The impact of emotion on the perception of graded magnitudes of respiratory resistive loads

Emotional state can modulate the perception of respiratory loads but the range of respiratory load magnitudes affected by emotional state is unknown. We hypothesized that viewing pleasant, neutral and unpleasant affective pictures would modulate the perception of respiratory loads of different load magnitudes. Twenty-four healthy adults participated in the study. Five inspiratory resistive loads of increasing magnitude (5, 10, 15, 20, 45cmH₂O/L/s) were repeatedly presented for one inspiration while participants viewed pleasant, neutral and unpleasant affective picture series. Participants rated how difficult it was to breathe against the load immediately after each presentation. Only at the lowest load, magnitude estimation ratings were greater when subjects viewed the unpleasant series compared to the neutral and pleasant series. These results suggest that negative emotional state increases the sense of respiratory effort for single presentations of a low magnitude resistive load but high magnitude loads are not further modulated by emotional state.