Heart Rate Variability and Cardiac Vagal Tone in Psychophysiological Research - Recommendations for Experiment Planning, Data Analysis, and Data Reporting
Sylvain Laborde · Emma Mosley · Julian F. Thayer
Frontiers in Psychology · 2017
What the research tells us
These recommendations distinguish resting, reactivity and recovery measurements. Raw ECG, recording length, artefact handling and respiration all affect interpretation. Recordings shorter than the commonly used five-minute window need metric-specific validation of comparability.
Scope & interpretation
Monitoring respiration does not imply automatic respiratory adjustment for every resting spontaneous-breathing recording; task-related breathing changes require care. Reporting guidance does not validate a device or clinical predictor, and filter settings cannot be transferred without checking.
Study at a glance
- POPULATION & SAMPLE
- Methodological recommendations for psychophysiological HRV research; no new clinical trial sample.
- EXPOSURE / INTERVENTION / SUBJECT
- Study design, rest/reactivity/recovery, ECG and interbeat intervals, signal cleaning and statistical reporting.
- OUTCOMES
- Interpretability and reproducibility of HRV measures related to cardiac vagal regulation.
- TIME FRAME
- Five minutes is a common short-recording reference; other durations require metric- and question-specific validation.
Cited on this site
Editorial & review record
Record for v0.3 · Updated
Editorial responsibility: TAP Editorial Team
Editorial note
Under the editorial responsibility of the TAP Editorial Team, this publication used AI assistance for content organization and editing.
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How responsibilities and review are recorded ↗Scope of this reading note
Full-text rest/reactivity/recovery framework, equipment, recording length, artefacts and respiration. Particular devices and windows require corresponding independent validation studies.
- Study funding
- German Sport University Cologne, grant HIFF 920147.
- Competing interests
- The authors declared no commercial or financial relationships that could constitute a conflict.
Project support
Founded and supported by Resilio.
Revision history
- · v0.3
Added specific limits concerning recording windows, respiration and artefact processing.