Committee report: Guidelines for human startle eyeblink electromyographic studies

Abstract

The human startle response is a sensitive, noninvasive measure of central nervous system activity that is currently used in a wide variety of research and clinical settings. In this article, we raise methodological issues and present recom- mendations for optimal methods of startle blink electromyographic (EMG) response elicitation, recording, quan- tification, and reporting. It is hoped that this report will foster more methodological validity and reliability in research using the startle response, as well as increase the detail with which relevant methodology is reported in publications using this measure. Descriptors: Startle, Blink, Electromyographic (EMG), Human Due to the dramatic increase in the use of the startle blink re- sponse in research and clinical settings, Gregory Miller, then Editor of Psychophysiology (2001), appointed a committee to consider guidelines for startle blink research in humans. The re- sult is this article, the aim of which is to propose a series of suggestions that might guide researchers in the collection and reporting of data based on the blink component of the startle response. Due to space limitations, this article will not deal with several areas of interest to startle researchers, such as affect, at- tention, psychopathology, and prepulse inhibition, but will in- stead focus on the fundamental methodology applied when startle blink electromyographic (EMG) data are used to inves- tigate any research question. One goal of this article is to bring a higher degree of both reliability and validity to this research area by summarizing recent research in which alternative methods have been compared and by providing criteria for choosing among them. Another goal is to encourage the reporting of rel- evant methodological details in publications in this area of re- search. We hope that this article will serve as a guide for researchers new to the area of startle, showing them the potential ramifications of deciding to do things one way rather than an- other. Moreover, experienced researchers may benefit from a review of the methodological advances that have been made in this area over the past few years, and may even reconsider some of their current practices.