Emotional Arousal Research Articles

Online Mothering: The Empowering Nature of a Hashtag Movement Founded on Social Sharing and Stereotype Deconstruction

Online mothering is an arising and multifaceted phenomenon as the online world offers unique opportunities and risks in a particularly challenging period. The overall aim of this work is to investigate the features of the hashtag movement #itcouldbeme, which was born after a terrible news event concerning a newborn’s death, specifically concerning (a) the e-activation levels; (b) the emotional arousal; (c) the potential presence of deconstruction of stereotypes concerning intensive mothering. To investigate positioning, reactions, and emotions, a database of 394 online posts gathered from popular Italian social networks was created, manually codified, and analyzed through the chi-square test. The results enabled us to deepen the associations among these variables, thus revealing the opportunities for empowerment offered by the socio-cultural positioning, different emotional pathways, and adhesion to this online movement. Finally, implications for professionals and public health issues are discussed.

A Machine Learning Pipeline for Emotion Recognition based on Brain Topographic Maps Derived from Electroencephalogram Signals

Emotion recognition is an increasingly relevant field due to its direct implications for various sectors of society. The area aims to enhance the understanding of how emotions influence human behavior. Exploring brain activity analysis through electroencephalogram signals becomes possible when considering that emotions can manifest non-verbally. In this scenario, machine learning applications prove promising due to the complexity of recognizing emotions from electrical signal data from the brain. The case study focuses on DEAP, a recognized dataset constructed through experiments in electroencephalography, exposing subjects to musical and visual stimuli. The main objective of this work is to present a pipeline for the classification of emotions based on images of topographic maps generated from the EEGLAB tool and electroencephalogram signals. Additionally, the contributions of this work include the presentation of a structured dataset created through the mapping of temporal, spatial, and frequency data derived from topographic images and models for predicting dimensional emotions of arousal and valence based on the new dataset. Results demonstrate accuracies of 85.46% and 85.05% for the classification of low/high arousal and valence emotions, respectively.

From Eye Movements to Personality Traits: A Machine Learning Approach in Blood Donation Advertising

Blood donation heavily depends on voluntary involvement, but the problem of motivating and retaining potential blood donors remains. Understanding the personality traits of donors can assist in this case, bridging communication gaps and increasing participation and retention. To this end, an eye-tracking experiment was designed to examine the viewing behavior of 75 participants as they viewed various blood donation-related advertisements. The purpose of these stimuli was to elicit various types of emotions (positive/negative) and message framings (altruistic/egoistic) to investigate cognitive reactions that arise from donating blood using eye-tracking parameters such as the fixation duration, fixation count, saccade duration, and saccade amplitude. The results indicated significant differences among the eye-tracking metrics, suggesting that visual engagement varies considerably in response to different types of advertisements. The fixation duration also revealed substantial differences in emotions, logo types, and emotional arousal, suggesting that the nature of stimuli can affect how viewers disperse their attention. The saccade amplitude and saccade duration were also affected by the message framings, thus indicating their relevance to eye movement behavior. Generalised linear models (GLMs) showed significant influences of personality trait effects on eye-tracking metrics, including a negative association between honesty–humility and fixation duration and a positive link between openness and both the saccade duration and fixation count. These results indicate that personality traits can significantly impact visual attention processes. The present study broadens the current research frontier by employing machine learning techniques on the collected eye-tracking data to identify personality traits that can influence donation decisions and experiences. Participants’ eye movements were analysed to categorize their dominant personality traits using hierarchical clustering, while machine learning algorithms, including Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest, and k-Nearest Neighbours (KNN), were employed to predict personality traits. Among the models, SVM and KNN exhibited high accuracy (86.67%), while Random Forest scored considerably lower (66.67%). This investigation reveals that computational models can infer personality traits from eye movements, which shows great potential for psychological profiling and human–computer interaction. This study integrates psychology research and machine learning, paving the way for further studies on personality assessment by eye tracking.

Statistical Relationships Between Phonological Form, Emotional Valence and Arousal of Spanish Words.

A number of studies have provided evidence of limited non-arbitrary associations between the phonological forms and meanings of affective words, a finding referred to as affective sound symbolism. Here, we explored whether the affective connotations of Spanish words might have more extensive statistical relationships with phonological/phonetic features, or affective form typicality. After eliminating words with poor affective rating agreement and morphophonological redundancies (e.g., negating prefixes), we found evidence of significant form typicality for emotional valence, emotionality, and arousal in a large sample of monosyllabic and polysyllabic words. These affective form-meaning mappings remained significant even when controlling for a range of lexico-semantic variables. We show that affective variables and their corresponding form typicality measures are able to significantly predict lexical decision performance using a megastudy dataset. Overall, our findings provide new evidence that affective form typicality is a statistical property of the Spanish lexicon.

E-motions and participation in technopopulist movement-parties. Enthusiasm and technopolitical disillusion

Social movements (SMs) protesting against the consequences of the austerity produced by the 2008 great recession leveraged collective participation as a paradigmatic way of revamping democratic institutions and processes. In southern Europe, participation was harnessed by technopolitical movement-parties (MPs) such as the Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy and Podemos in Spain. These are political forces combining SM characteristics with a technopolitical narrative to induce ‘e-motions’: emotional arousal of the membership produced by idealising the potential of digital technologies to enact unprecedented popular participation to renew democracy. Combining technocracy (popular competence via technopolitics) with populism (people vs elite rhetoric) the M5S and Podemos built a technopopulist discourse able to generate emotional engagement of the membership and high expectations for collective participation. However, the centralism of the leadership and its control over technopolitics produced an individualised model of engagement which led to disillusion. The article firstly elaborates a narrative literature review on participation, technopolitics, movement-parties, populism, and emotions to frame the affective relationship between participation and technopopulism. Secondly it uses qualitative methods to scrutinise the constituent process of M5S and Podemos technopolitics – when the digital process and infrastructures were created within both MPs – outlining the emotions elicited by technopolitical technopopulism.

Unveiling emotion dynamics in problem-solving: a comprehensive analysis with an intelligent tutoring system using facial expressions and electrodermal activities

Emotions play a crucial role in the learning process, yet there is a scarcity of studies examining emotion dynamics in problem-solving with fine-grained data and advanced tools. This study addresses this gap by investigating the emotional trajectories during self-regulated learning (SRL) phases (i.e., forethought, performance, and self-reflection) among 47 medical students utilizing an intelligent tutoring system. Real-time facial expressions were analyzed through recurrence quantification analysis alongside an examination of electrodermal activities (EDA) across the SRL phases. The findings reveal that emotion stability varied across SRL phases, with students exhibiting more stable emotions during the performance phase. Compared to the forethought and self-reflection phases, students had less frequent and lower intensity of emotional arousal in the performance phase. Moreover, we found that students with better performance demonstrated more stable emotions in the forethought phase, less stable emotions in the self-reflection phase, and a higher level of emotional arousal in the self-reflection phase. These insights highlight the temporal and dynamic nature of emotions in SRL, offering methodological and educational implications for leveraging facial expressions and EDA to monitor and enhance students’ emotional experience during problem-solving.

Adapting and Evaluating a Theory-Driven, Non-Pharmacological Intervention to Self-Manage Pain.

The existing literature has limited detail on theory-driven interventions, particularly in pain studies. We adapted Bandura's self-efficacy framework toward a theory-driven, non-pharmacological intervention using auricular point acupressure (APA) and evaluated participants' perceptions of this intervention on their pain self-management. APA is a non-invasive modality based on auricular acupuncture principles. We mapped our study intervention components according to Bandura's key sources of self-efficacy (performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal) to facilitate the self-management of pain. Through a qualitative study design, we conducted virtual interviews at one and three months after a 4-week APA intervention among 23 participants using purposive sampling to describe their experiences in managing their pain based on our theory-driven APA intervention. Using thematic analyses, we found four themes: the enhanced self-management of pain, improved pain outcomes, the feasibility of technology, and the sustainability of APA. Describing how interventions are mapped according to the elements of theoretical frameworks can help to guide intervention development, advance science and knowledge development, and promote the implementation of interventions. As such, using Bandura's self-efficacy theory as a foundation for the APA intervention, APA was found to be feasible and sustainable, improving self-management, pain intensity, and pain-related outcomes. Participants provided recommendations for the further improvement of this theory-driven intervention.

Not all consumer-generated images are attractive and persuasive: A heuristic cue perspective

This study explored how the features of consumer-generated images (CGIs) influence consumers' attention and purchase intention in both browsing and buying stages of online shopping, as well as the mediation of these effects. We consider the common features of image reviews (e.g. brightness, clarity, product displaying proportion and consistency) as heuristic cues evaluated by consumers. We posit that image brightness, clarity and product displaying proportion are product irrelevant cues associated with CGI attractiveness in the browsing stage, whereas product consistency is a product relevant cue associated with CGI attractiveness and purchase intention during the buying stage. Eye-tracking experiments with 127 undergraduates using Parka products support our hypotheses. The results indicate a positive correlation between the quality of product-irrelevant cues and CGI attractiveness in browsing, and a similar positive association with product-relevant cues during buying. The results also show that both product relevant and irrelevant cues are positively associated with consumers’ purchase intention, mediated by eliciting emotional arousal rather than visual attention. This study extends the literature by shifting the focus from assessing the overall aesthetic quality of CGIs to the importance of specific features in different online shopping stages. The study provides important implications for e-commerce platforms to strategically encourage users to submit CGIs that maintain consistency with the merchant-provided images and exhibit high image quality attributes such as brightness and clarity. Future research should explore CGIs across different product types to understand their varying roles.

Sustaining attention in affective contexts during adolescence: age-related differences and association with elevated symptoms of depression and anxiety

ABSTRACT Sustained attention, a key cognitive skill that improves during childhood and adolescence, tends to be worse in some emotional and behavioural disorders. Sustained attention is typically studied in non-affective task contexts; here, we used a novel task to index performance in affective versus neutral contexts across adolescence (N = 465; ages 11–18). We asked whether: (i) performance would be worse in negative versus neutral task contexts; (ii) performance would improve with age; (iii) affective interference would be greater in younger adolescents; (iv) adolescents at risk for depression and higher in anxiety would show overall worse performance; and (v) would show differential performance in negative contexts. Results indicated that participants performed more poorly in negative contexts and showed age-related performance improvements. Those at risk of depression performed more poorly than those at lower risk. However, there was no difference between groups as a result of affective context. For anxiety there was no difference in performance as a function of severity. However, those with higher anxiety showed less variance in their reaction times to negative stimuli than those with lower anxiety. One interpretation is that moderate levels of emotional arousal associated with anxiety make individuals less susceptible to the distracting effects of negative stimuli.

An Interactive Feeder to Induce and Assess Emotions from Vocalisations of Chickens.

Understanding the emotional states of animals is a long-standing research endeavour that has clear applications in animal welfare. Vocalisations are emerging as a promising way to assess both positive and negative emotional states. However, the vocal expression of emotions in birds is a relatively unexplored research area. The goal of this study was to develop an interactive feeding system that would elicit positive and negative emotional states, and collect recordings of the vocal expression of these emotions without human interference. In this paper, the mechatronic design and development of the feeder is described. Design choices were motivated by the desire for the hens to voluntarily interact with the feeder and experience the different stimuli that were designed to induce (1) positive low-arousal, (2) positive high-arousal, (3) negative low-arousal, and (4) negative high-arousal states. The results showed that hens were motivated to engage with the feeder despite the risk of receiving negative stimuli and that this motivation was sustained for at least 1 week. The potential of using the interactive feeder to analyse chicken vocalisations related to emotional valence and arousal is being explored, offering a novel proof of concept in animal welfare research. Preliminary findings suggest that hens vocalised in response to all four stimulus types, with the number of vocalisations, but not the probability of vocalising, distinguishing between low- and high-arousal states. Thus, the proposed animal-computer interaction design has potential to be used as an enrichment device and for future experiments on vocal emotions in birds.

Construction of a Chinese traditional instrumental music dataset: A validated set of naturalistic affective music excerpts

Music is omnipresent among human cultures and moves us both physically and emotionally. The perception of emotions in music is influenced by both psychophysical and cultural factors. Chinese traditional instrumental music differs significantly from Western music in cultural origin and music elements. However, previous studies on music emotion perception are based almost exclusively on Western music. Therefore, the construction of a dataset of Chinese traditional instrumental music is important for exploring the perception of music emotions in the context of Chinese culture. The present dataset included 273 10-second naturalistic music excerpts. We provided rating data for each excerpt on ten variables: familiarity, dimensional emotions (valence and arousal), and discrete emotions (anger, gentleness, happiness, peacefulness, sadness, solemnness, and transcendence). The excerpts were rated by a total of 168 participants on a seven-point Likert scale for the ten variables. Three labels for the excerpts were obtained: familiarity, discrete emotion, and cluster. Our dataset demonstrates good reliability, and we believe it could contribute to cross-cultural studies on emotional responses to music.

The Effect of Group Psychotherapy on the Mental Health of Servicemen with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The aim of the article is to determine the conditions for the effective use of group psychotherapy in working with servicemen with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The research employed the methods of testing and formative experiment. The sample consisted of the servicemen with PTSD symptoms. The group psychotherapy programme demonstrated uneven effectiveness. The effectiveness of individual and group work in reducing the symptoms of re-experiencing the event is moderate. Manifestations of avoiding traumatic situations did not change significantly in the process of group influence, while a moderate positive influence was recorded in the case of applying an individual approach. Group psychotherapy is the most effective in working with symptoms of emotional arousal of servicemen, which results from trauma. The significance of the implementation of the obtained results lies in the development of effective programmes and protocols of psychotherapy aimed at overcoming post- traumatic stress disorder of veterans and combatants. Further research may focus on expanding the research sample and the implementation of an experimental combination of individual and group psychotherapy in the work with servicemen with PTSD.

Within the sound of trouble: Do humans use pitch to correctly assess emotional arousal across species?

Comments on an article by Jay W. Schwartz , Kayleigh H. Pierson, and Alexander K. Reece (see record 2024-19488-001). In this issue, Schwartz et al. (2024) tackle the pitch rule in humans by testing to what extent we use pitch alone to judge emotional arousal across closely and distantly related animal species. The findings of Schwartz et al. open a number of intriguing possibilities for future research: Notably important additional steps would include to further investigate the accuracy of the pitch rule across closely and distantly related species. Upon this, in order to study the evolutionary ancestry of the pitch rule, it will be necessary to study its applicability across nonhumans. Particularly interesting would be the inclusion of subject species that have been found to eavesdrop on heterospecific alarm calls. Previous research (see Hoeschele, 2017 for a review) as well as present findings on human ratings of macaque versus cricket calls also suggest that we should additionally focus on sound features that compliment emotional arousal rating beyond pitch such as spectral information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Research on the restorative benefits of sky gardens in high-rise buildings based on wearable biosensors and subjective evaluations

BackgroundThe design of sky gardens in high-rise buildings to promote health has recently attracted increased attention. However, little is known about the specific physiologically and psychologically restorative benefits of sky gardens. MethodThis article defined sky garden types according to five indicators in three dimensions based on the characteristics of the high-rise buildings where sky gardens are located: plaza-park, rest-stay and move-pass sky gardens. Typical sky gardens of each type were selected for the subsequent experiment. Thirty-six participants experienced 12 typical case scenarios (432 pictures), and data were collected on physiological responses (skin conductance resistance, SCR; heart rate variability, HRV; electroencephalogram, EEG; and eye movement) and psychological evaluations (emotional valence & arousal self-esteem scale, perceived restrictiveness scale) during the sky garden spatial experience. ResultsThere are significant differences in plaza-park, rest-stay and move-pass type sky gardens, especially in the internal spatial characteristics (size scale, shape index, and elementary richness). The plaza-park sky gardens had better restorative outcomes in visual-physiological (average pupil diameter, average blink count), emotional valence and restrictiveness components of being away, fascination, and coherence. The rest-stay sky gardens had better restorative effects on SCR, HRV, emotional arousal, and compatibility. The move-pass sky gardens had the greatest restorative benefits in the average saccade count. ConclusionsSky gardens in high-rises impact people's physical and psychosocial well-being. The restorative qualities of the three types of sky gardens differ based on their spatial heterogeneity, with large-scale sky gardens, diverse natural landscapes, public facilities, and high void-to-solid ratios having greater restorative potential.

Do pictures' emotional valence and arousal affect younger and older adults' narratives?

Emotional content, specifically negative valence, can differentially influence speech production in younger and older adults' autobiographical narratives, which have been interpreted as reflecting age differences in emotion regulation. However, age differences in emotional reactivity are another possible explanation, as younger and older adults frequently differ in their affective responses to negative and positive pictures. The present experiment investigated whether a picture's valence (pleasantness) and arousal (intensity) influenced older adults' production of narratives about those pictures. Thirty younger and 30 older participants produced narratives about pictures that varied in valence (positive, negative, and neutral) and arousal (high, low). Narratives were recorded via Zoom, transcribed, and analyzed with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count-22 to get measures of emotional word use, disfluencies, and linguistic distance. Results showed that negative valence increased age differences in speech production independent of picture arousal: Relative to younger adults, older adults used more positive words, fewer negative words, and had more silent pauses when telling narratives about negative pictures. In contrast, high arousal decreased age differences such that older adults used fewer positive words in narratives about positive pictures and more linguistically distant words evidenced by fewer present-tense verbs, relative to narratives about low-arousal pictures. Contrary to an explanation of enhanced regulation or control over emotions in older adulthood, these findings support the idea that older adults' speech production is influenced by their reactivity or affective response to emotional stimuli even when the task is not to communicate one's emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Multimodal Physiological Analysis of Impact of Emotion on Cognitive Control in VR.

Cognitive control is often perplexing to elucidate and can be easily influenced by emotions. Understanding the individual cognitive control level is crucial for enhancing VR interaction and designing adaptive and self-correcting VR/AR applications. Emotions can reallocate processing resources and influence cognitive control performance. However, current research has primarily emphasized the impact of emotional valence on cognitive control tasks, neglecting emotional arousal. In this study, we comprehensively investigate the influence of emotions on cognitive control based on the arousal-valence model. A total of 26 participants are recruited, inducing emotions through VR videos with high ecological validity and then performing related cognitive control tasks. Leveraging physiological data including EEG, HRV, and EDA, we employ classification techniques such as SVM, KNN, and deep learning to categorize cognitive control levels. The experiment results demonstrate that high-arousal emotions significantly enhance users' cognitive control abilities. Utilizing complementary information among multi-modal physiological signal features, we achieve an accuracy of 84.52% in distinguishing between high and low cognitive control. Additionally, time-frequency analysis results confirm the existence of neural patterns related to cognitive control, contributing to a better understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive control in VR. Our research indicates that physiological signals measured from both the central and autonomic nervous systems can be employed for cognitive control classification, paving the way for novel approaches to improve VR/AR interactions.

Self-assessment of emotional arousal in adolescents and young adults

Introduction. The deep level of integration of cognitive and emotional processes must be taken into account in the modern education system and in the training of teaching staff. Adolescence is characterized by intense changes in the emotional sphere. At the same time, the data on emotional processes changes in adolescents are quite contradictory. In addition, most studies of emotions in this age period were carried out in Western culture and the problem of cross-cultural comparisons of emotional development patterns rarely attract the attention of researchers. To correctly measure a person’s emotional sphere, methods that have passed the validation procedure in the country where the work is planned are needed. One way to study emotional reactions is the IAPS database of emotionally evocative photographs. The aim of the study was to compare emotional performance at different stages of adolescence and early adulthood in as part of testing emotionally charged IAPS stimuli on a Russian adolescent sample. Materials and methods. The study involved 436 adolescents and young adults. Four groups were compared: 10-12 years old (49 boys and 51 girls), 13-14 years old (48 boys, 48 girls), 15-17 years old (45 boys, 75 girls) and 18-25 years old (24 men and 96 women). Participants in the study were required to evaluate the emotions that arose in response to the presentation of IAPS pictures on the screen on the scales of valence (feeling of pleasure - displeasure), arousal (strength of excitation) and dominance (feeling of control over the situation). Results. The valence, arousal and dominance scores were obtained for Russian samples 10-12 years old, 13-14 years old, 15-17 years old, 18-25 years old, with a high level of reliability. In addition, cross-cultural differences from American norms were demonstrated, emphasizing the necessity to use scores developed on representatives of the culture where the study is planned to be carry out. The study also showed that in adolescence there is a change in the affective space formed by the scale of valence and arousal, which indicates a crucial change in the emotional sphere during this period. The comparison showed significant differences on emotional scales for both positive and negative emotions between different age groups, indicating the dynamics of emotional development. The complex pattern of differences in valence, arousal and dominance scales between different age groups suggests non-linear changes. Conclusion. The standards for the valence, arousal and dominance scales of the IAPS database for Russian adolescents and young adults, which can be used to measure the emotional variables are presented in a study.

MMD-MSD: A Multimodal Multisensory Dataset in Support of Research and Technology Development for Musculoskeletal Disorders

Improper sitting positions are known as the primary reason for back pain and the emergence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among individuals who spend prolonged time working with computer screens, keyboards, and mice. At the same time, it is well understood that automated technological tools can play an important role in the process of unhealthy habit alteration, so plenty of research efforts are focused on research and technology development (RTD) activities that aim to provide support for the prevention of back pain or the development of MSDs. Here, we report on creating a new resource in support of RTD activities aiming at the automated detection of improper sitting positions. It consists of multimodal multisensory recordings of 100 persons, made with a video recorder, camera, and wrist-attached sensors that capture physiological signals (PPG, EDA, skin temperature), as well as motion sensors (three-axis accelerometer). Our multimodal multisensory dataset (MMD-MSD) opens new opportunities for modeling the body stance (sitting posture and movements), physiological state (stress level, attention, emotional arousal and valence), and performance (success rate on the Stroop test) of people working with a computer. Finally, we demonstrate two use cases: improper neck posture detection from pictures, and task-specific cognitive load detection from physiological signals.

INFLUENCE OF DOCUMENTARY FILMS ON LEARNING CULTURAL AWARENESS AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN UYO, NIGERIA

The study explores the influence of documentary films on learning, awareness, and cultural consciousness of undergraduate University students in Uyo Akwa Ibom State Nigeria. Documentaries, portraying real-life scenarios, serve to educate, inform, and entertain audiences. Six focus group discussions with undergraduate students at the University were conducted and interview questions were guided by review of literature and Priming Theory to facilitate discussions. Data from the focus group discussions were tape recoded, transcribed verbatim, coded, and thematically analyzed. Findings from the study revealed that students gain new knowledge, experience emotional arousal, and develop empathy through exposure to documentary films. Furthermore, documentaries serve as platforms for information dissemination, behavior shaping, and reinforcement of viewers' beliefs. Globalization and technological advancement have led to the wide spread of Western cultural values, while Nigerian indigenous cultural heritage faces decline, particularly among the youth. Documentaries emerge as essential tools for raising awareness and fostering cultural consciousness and countering the erosion of local traditions and values. On the premise of dominance of western culture, social polarization, and declining cultural values among youth, documentaries can help reignite interest in societal norms and help to preserve the culture and traditional heritage of the people in Akwa Ibom State.

Family Emotional Decorative Paintings: Interaction Design for Communication

This paper describes an approach applied to decorative home paintings: an emotional interaction approach. The study utilizes the theory of constructed emotion and the Wizard of Oz research methodology to extend the user's emotional experience in home scenarios with emotional self-reflection and regulation. Family Emotion Decorative Painting uses the family-shared photo library as the image base data, obtains the emotion type through facial expression and voice emotion recognition, and correlates the moment's emotion with the emotion reacted in the picture. Through qualitative research, we found that family emotional decorative painting can bring emotional arousal and soothing to participants. Family Emotional Decorative Paintings also provoked reflection on technology in and around the home. These findings suggest several opportunities, such as designing for anticipation, better supporting reflection on the past. The study also allowed the team to question the traditional interaction design view that more frequent and prolonged human-computer interactions are a measure of good design. The team will next focus on ways for users to engage in novel and meaningful ways outside of the application.