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This chapter is an attempt to understand the effect of audio-visual stimulus with a humorous content on the cardiac electrophysiology. Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals were acquired from 11 female volunteers under the pre- and the post-stimulus conditions. Artificial neural network (ANN)-based classification of the ARMA model coefficients computed from the RR interval signals suggested significant variation in the autonomic nervous system activity. Analysis of the Gabor denoised ECG signals indicated a change in the electrical activity of the heart in the post-stimulus condition, which was confirmed by the ANN-based classification. Recurrence analysis of the RR interval suggested plausible differences of the cardiac activity amongst both the conditions. The audio-visual stimulus has resulted in significant alterations in the ANS and the cardiac physiology.

This study portrays the effect of the regional state anthem of Odisha, used as an audio stimulus, on the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and cardiac conduction pathway in Odia females during the first stage of their menstrual cycle. Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal was acquired from eighteen female volunteers, prior to and after exposure to the state anthem (stimulus). In order to study the consequence of the stimulus on the ANS, heart rate variability (HRV) analysis was performed. The results suggested an increase in the parasympathetic activity and a corresponding reduction in the sympathetic activity. ECG signal processing was performed using well founded coherent methods like time-domain, Gabor denoised time-domain and joint time-frequency domain analysis to understand the effect of the stimulus on the cardiac electrophysiology. An alteration in the cardiac electrophysiology in the post-stimulus condition was observed. Artificial neural network (ANN) provided a classification efficiency of ≥ 90% in all the analyses.