Psychophysiological, Behavioral, and Psychometric Data of Non-Clinical Men Across Diverse Cognitive and Emotional Tasks

PNS index, SNS index, Stress Index, RMSSD, and Heart Rate—were computed through Kubios Premium Software across five distinct, consecutive experimental phases: 1. Rest1 (Baseline): Initial resting state. 2. IAT (Implicit Association Test): Assessing implicit cognitive associations. 3.

Conf (Conflict Adaptation task): Evaluating cognitive control and conflict resolution. 4. MASC (Movie Assessment of Social Cognition): Measuring mentalizing abilities, cognitive empathy, and affective empathy. 5. Rest2 (Recovery): Post-task resting state to evaluate physiological normalization. • Behavioral Data: Task-specific performance metrics were recorded during the experimental blocks, including reaction times and response accuracy (from Conf), association strengths (from the IAT), and quantified scores for both cognitive and affective empathy (from the MASC).

Unsupervised modelling of the dynamics of separate HRV indices along the protocol highlights the following: • PNS activity was associated with better adaptation and regulation but poorer implicit performance, whereas SNS activity favored automatic processing while potentially impairing emotional regulation and Theory of Mind. • Two distinct latent classes (high and low) were identified for the indices SNS, Stress, RMSSD and Heart Rate.

Approximately one-third of participants exhibited a high alertness profile (low RMSSD and elevated SNS/stress indices), with substantial overlap between the two groups (71.4–85.7%). Depending on the index examined, this subgroup was associated with higher alcohol consumption, reactive aggression, positive schizotypy and poorer adaptation to emotional interference (slower and less accurate responses).