Emotion-Triggered impulsivity relates to speech dysfluency during high arousal states

Abstract

Emotion-triggered impulsivity is robustly tied to psychopathologies. We hypothesized that one form of emotion-triggered impulsivity, Feelings Trigger Action, would be correlated with speech disfluencies during high arousal. Participants with a range of internalizing and externalizing symptoms completed a stressful speech task in which they were videorecorded while discussing a controversial topic. Skin conductance was gathered to index arousal. Consistent with hypotheses, Feelings Trigger Action scores related to modestly higher levels of speech repairs when participants were experiencing relatively higher arousal (N = 198).  There was some evidence that a second form of emotion-triggered impulsivity also related to more speech errors during high arousal. Findings provide early evidence that speech disfluencies might be one manifestation of emotion-triggered impulsivity. Limitations and direction for future research are considered.