The effects of age, sex and time of testing on skin conductance activity.

An investigation of the electrodermal activity of 640 subjects was carried out in Mauritius. Results of a balanced factorial design with 5 age groups, sex, season (hot versus cold), time of day of testing (a.m./p.m.), as factors, suggested the need to take account of age and sex in studies using measures of electrodermal activity. However, season and time of day of testing are seen as important mainly in interaction with sex and give rise to the suggestion that females may be more responsive to environmental conditions than men. The results also provide data which show that a rate of electrodermal non-responsivity of about 25% appears to be constant over the age groups of 5-25 years used in the study.