Research Symposium

BIO

Wendy Rodriguez is a third-year Florida State University student pursuing a degree in Psychology with minors in Child Development and Retail Operations. As a UROP student, she assisted on a randomized controlled trial for a web-based intervention targeting individuals who have previously experienced tonic immobility as a trauma response. Wendy is planning to continue exploring cognitive research with a focus on suicidality and neurobehavioral disorders in hopes of pursing a PhD in clinical psychology with an emphasis in child psychology.

Examination of Tonic Immobility in a Lab-Based Experimental Paradigm

Abstract

Research in the area of threat responding has modeled a continuum of autonomic, survival-based behaviors including the stages of freeze, fight, and flight (Barlow, 2002; Bradley et al., 2001; Lang et al., 1997). Tonic immobility (TI) is a type of freeze response characterized by continued motor and vocal inhibition. The present study aims to gain a better understanding of the physiological reactions and subjective experiences of TI by examining the associations between self-reported TI and postural sway in participants with previous trauma exposure. Participants completed self-reported measures assessing tonic immobility experienced during the individual’s worst trauma, across stressful experiences, and in response to a laboratory-based task, among other psychological correlates. The image-viewing task consisted of a series of neutral and affective images while assessing for postural sway recorded through the Nintendo Wii Balance board (WBB). Multiple linear regression analyses indicated prior experience of TI significantly predicted a reduction in postural sway when viewing mutilation images as opposed to neutral and positive images, as well as significantly predicting self-reported tonic immobility. Understanding the motor attribute of TI holds implications for future research examining freeze responses in trauma-exposed populations. 

Keywords: Trauma response, freeze response, tonic immobility