Electrodermal Activity: Simultaneous Recordings

Abstract

Electrodermal activity (EDA) is a sensitive measure of the sympathetic nervous system activity. It is used to describe changes in the skin electrical properties. This chapter aimed to show advantages of simultaneous recordings of EDA parameters at the same skin site over other recordings. The literature databases, Web of Science and Google Scholar, were searched using terms like “electrodermal activity,” “sequential recording,” “simultaneous recording,” “skin conductance,” “skin potential,” and “skin susceptance.” Articles that include sequential and/or simultaneous recording of EDA parameters were analyzed. The chapter presents a description of the oldest and current methods used for recording EDA parameters and an explanation of the newest techniques used in EDA researches. Although sequential recordings are predominant and widely spreading, much effort has been made to simultaneously record skin conductance (SC) and skin potential (SP), and recently researchers realized the capability of simultaneously recording SC, SP, and skin susceptance (SS) at the same skin site. The advantage of simultaneous over the sequence measurements is that the latter must be manually time realigned when measured by different instruments, which means it is time-consuming. Although the simultaneous measurements are used exclusively for research purposes at this stage, this may open horizons in the modern trends of psychophysiology applications in the near future.