Analysis of ECG Signals to Investigate the Effect of a Humorous Audio-Visual Stimulus on Autonomic Nervous System and Heart of Females

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.