Psychophysiology of anxiety, fear and phobia

• 1.

  1. First, the authors present a brief outline of the concepts of anxiety, fear and phobia and their physiological concomitants.

• 2.

  2. Experimental findings are then presented showing that the emotional state of anxiety is generally linked to physiological activation as measured in spontaneous fluctuations and habituation rate of the orienting response of the galvanic skin response (GSR).

• 3.

  3. Other findings show that on the contrary, depression is linked to inhibition or disactivation of these systems, and also of contingent negative variations (CNV).

• 4.

  4. In unselected samples of anxious-depressed patients, the above relationships do not become obvious when psychopathology is self-rated, which suggests that anxiety and depression are better distinguished by the examining physician than by the patients themselves.