Measuring electrodermal activity (EDA) on the wrist with the use of dry electrodes is a promising method to help identify person-specific stressors during prolonged recordings in daily life. While the feasibility of this method has been demonstrated, detailed testing of validity of such ambulatory EDA is scarce. In a controlled laboratory study, we examine SCL and ns.SCR derived from wrist-based dry electrodes (Philips DTI) and palm-based wet electrodes (VU-AMS) in 112 healthy adults (57% females, mean age = 22.3, SD = 3.4) across 26 different conditions involving mental stressors or physical activities. Changes in these EDA measures were compared to changes in the Pre-ejection period (PEP) and stressor-induced changes in affect. Absolute SCL and ns.SCR frequency were lower at the wrist compared to the palm. Wrist-based ns.SCR and palm-based ns.SCR and SCL responded directionally consistent with our experimental manipulation of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity. Average within-subject correlations between palm-based and wrist-based EDA were significant but modest (r SCL = 0.31; r ns.SCR = 0.42). Changes in ns.SCR frequency at the palm (r = −0.44) and the wrist (r = −0.36) were correlated with changes in PEP. Both palm-based and wrist based EDA predicted changes in affect (6.5%–14.5%). Our data suggest that wrist-based ns.SCR frequency is a useful addition to the psychophysiologist’s toolkit, at least for epidemiology-sized ambulatory studies of changes in sympathetic activity during daily life.

The therapeutic use of virtual reality (VR) is well established in the treatment of anxiety disorders. As an early step to develop a VR environment to desensitize people suffering from eco-anxiety, we created an “emotion-to-picture match” task to characterize their behavioral and physiological responses during exposure to neutral and threatening environmental stimuli. Twenty-nine participants who were identified as “high” or “low” scorers in the Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale (Hogg et al. 2021) were exposed to three blocks of randomized “eco-anxiety” and “neutral” images, while their electrocardiogram and skin conductance level was recorded. In each trial, participants had to choose from six emotions the one that would closely match their feelings towards the image. During “eco-anxiety” images, the “high” scorers addressed significantly more “anger” than the “low” scorers, whereas “seeking” emotions were more frequent among the latter. In addition, “neutral” images also evoked significantly more “panic” among the “high” eco-anxiety participants, whereas “seeking” emotions were more frequently experienced by the “low” eco-anxiety participants. Surprisingly, “high” eco-anxiety participants displayed higher heart rate variability and lower electrodermal activity than “low” eco-anxiety participants throughout the task, a finding that is at odds with the current understanding of physiological symptoms of anxiety. The design of therapeutic VR environments should forecast all sorts of discomfort that patients are willing to tolerate during VR exposure therapy.