Citation

Maes M, De Meyer F, Peeters D, Meltzer H, Cosyns P, Schotte C. Int. J. Biometeorol. 1992; 36(4): 195-200.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Antwerp, Belgium.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, International Society of Biometeorology, Publisher Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

1428221

Abstract

Recently, true seasonal variation with significant periodicities (circannual, semiannual, circatrimensual, circabimensual) and a significant meteotropism have been observed in a number of self-rated characteristics of normal man (arousal, mood, physiology and social behaviour). In order to replicate these findings, two normal controls (a married couple) were asked daily to complete a self-rating scale concerned with the characteristics mentioned above during one calendar year. By means of time series analysis, significant rhythmicities with recurrent cycles in the autorhythmometric data of all of the above characteristics were found. An important part of the variance in these characteristics was found, using multiple regression, to be related to various weather variables, such as mean atmospheric pressure, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, minutes of sunlight/day and precipitation/day. These results support the hypothesis that temporal variations in human psychological and physiological characteristics may be dictated by the composite effects of past and present atmospheric activity.

Language: en