Figure 3
From: Hedonic and autonomic responses in promoting affective touch
Heart rate and Self-reported anxiety levels. (a) Z-scored heart rate (Beats Per Minute; BPM) when affective touch was delivered by Males or Females to either a Stranger (green) or the Partner (purple). Heart rate was extracted considering the whole block duration, for both Partner and Stranger blocks. (b) State anxiety variations as measured by State-Trait Anxiety Inventory reported by Males and Females after completing the Stranger (green) and the Partner (purple) blocks; significance values depicted inside the bars indicate the p-values of t-tests against zero for each condition separately. Values shown are the mean ± s.e.m.. Significant results are indicated by asterisk * = p < 0.05; ** = p < 0.01; *** = p < 0.001. n.s. = not significant.
