Higher RSA indicates
Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is a measure of heart rate variability closely associated with vagus
nerve function. RSA is calculated from changes in time intervals between heartbeats linked to the
respiration cycle. Heart beats will increase when breathing in and decrease when exhaling. In young
people, the presence of a high RSA is considered an indication of strong health while in older people, such
variability in the heart rate can become a concern as it is associated with heart disease. RSA can also
reveal aspects of an individual’s psychological and social character (see right)
To calculate RSA there exists several programs, including Cardio Batch and Acqknowledge. This
investigation ultimately set out to find if both programs would analyze heart rate and respiration
data in the same way, outputting the same RSA value. If so, researchers could replace the usage of
one for the other.
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Prosocial behaviour
Better emotion recognition
Greater compassion
Less hostility
Lower RSA associated with
● Callous Unemotional (CU) traits
● Lack of social awareness, and
emotional expressivity
● Collect respiration and electrocardiogram (electrical activity of the heart) using electrodes and
respiration belt while
i. Subject is watching a nature video for 5 min
ii. Subject is building magnet shapes for 5 min
iii. Subject is building magnet shapes while narrating actions for 5 min
iv. Subject is talking for 5 min
● Analyze data in four different ways
i. Without editing the data anywhere, find the RSA through Cardio Batch
ii. Edit data on CardioEdit and find RSA through Cardio Batch
iii. Through CardioEdit, edit data corrected for missing R-wave peaks in Acqknowledge. Then find
RSA through Cardio Batch
iv. Without editing the data anywhere, find the RSA through Acqknowledge
v. Correct R-wave peaks on Acqknowledge and find RSA through Acqknowledge
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Wagner, N.J., Hastings, P.D. & Rubin, K.H. J Abnorm Child Psychol
(2018) 46: 1439. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-017-0374-6
Switzer A, Caldwell W, da Estrela C, Barker ET and Gouin J-P (2018)
Dyadic Coping, Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia, and Depressive
Symptoms Among Parents of Preschool Children. Front. Psychol.
9:1959. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01959