Emotional Arousal Research Articles

Representational similarity analysis of self- versus other-processing: Effect of trait aggressiveness.

In this study, using the self/other adjective judgment task, we aimed to explore how people perceive themselves in comparison to various other people, including friends, strangers, and those they dislike. Next, using representational similarity analysis, we sought to elucidate how these perceptual similarities and differences are represented in brain activity and how aggressiveness is related to these representations. Behavioral ratings show that, on average, people tend to consider themselves more like their friends than neutral strangers, and least like people they dislike. This pattern of similarity is positively correlated with neural representation in social and cognitive circuits of the brain and negatively correlated with neural representation in emotional centers that may represent emotional arousal associated with various social objects. Aggressiveness seems to predispose a person to a pattern of behavior that is the opposite of the average pattern, that is, a tendency to think of oneself as less like one's friends and more like one's enemies. This corresponds to an increase in the similarity of the behavioral representation with the representation in the emotional centers and a decrease in its similarity with the representation in the social and cognitive centers. This can be seen as evidence that in individuals prone to aggression, behavior in the social environment may depend to a greater extent on the representation of social objects in the emotional rather than social and cognitive brain circuits.

公众环境认知与绿色产品贸易的关系——政策法律文本的调节作用

In today's increasingly accelerating globalization, environmental protection and sustainable development have become the focus of common concern for all countries. Public environmental awareness, that is, the public's understanding and attitude towards environmental issues, has a significant impact on environmental protection work. Meanwhile, with the rise of green product trade, the market trading of green products is becoming increasingly active. As one of the means to regulate the relationship between public environmental awareness and green product trade, the role of policies and legal texts is increasingly prominent. This article will explore the relationship between public environmental awareness and green product trade and analyze the regulatory role of policies and legal texts in it. This article explores the impact of trade and environmental policies on the financial system through computer software. It constructs a theoretical hypothesis model to explore the moderating effect of policy and legal texts on the relationship between public emotional perception of environmental policies and green product trade. After empirical testing, all research hypotheses in this study have been supported. The results showed that at a test level of 0.01, consumers' perception of green efficacy, perceived green responsibility, green purchasing behavior, emotional arousal, and moderate values were significantly positively correlated. Among them, the R-value of perceived green efficiency and green purchasing behavior is 0.701, and the R-value of perceived green responsibility and green purchasing behavior is 0.638, indicating the degree of correlation between perceived green efficiency, perceived green responsibility, and green purchasing behavior. Green purchasing behavior is highly correlated. The conclusion indicates that the government has further increased export subsidies for the clean industry, implemented differentiated environmental tax policies, and emphasized the coordinated use of procedures, promoting the development of the clean industry and the upgrading of industrial structure.

Sensory Inputs Guiding Cognitive Behaviors and Decision Making

Understanding human behaviors and higher cognitive functioning has long been an ultimate goal for psychologists and neuroscientists. Sensory inputs are pivotal in shaping the intricate landscape of complex behaviors and decision-making processes in both humans and animals. The distinct pathways through which the sensory information is perceived from the environment are referred as sensory modalities. Each sensory modality corresponds to a specific type of sensory input or sense, such as vision, hearing, or tactile, enabling us to gather information about the world around us. Sensory inputs integrate information of various sensory modalities at different levels of nervous system and networks, are filtered by attention, forming the perception of the external environment. Through the interaction with various neural circuits and networks, the sensory inputs activate memories and emotions, leading to further information processing. The conversion of sensory information into behavior and decision making is a complex neuronal process involving context evaluation, emotional arousal, memory activation and reward system prediction, with sensory inputs impacting immediate reactions and shaping long-term memory and future responses. This paper is a systematic review of recent literature studies that explain cognition and behaviors, providing an overview of the multifaceted interplay between sensory perception and the execution of complex behaviors, while highlighting the significance of sensory processing in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral science.

Leaving the Cold Behind: The Role of Emotions and Cognitive Biases in Business Adaptation to Climate Change

This article develops the argument that the interplay between emotions and cognitive biases influences corporate decision-making on climate change adaptation. Our theoretical analysis examines how emotions can change the effect of cognitive biases on adaptation decisions by influencing how firms select, access, and process complex and uncertain climatic information. We draw on research on climate adaptation, social psychology, and managerial cognition and focus on three forms of bias: availability heuristic, framing, and anchoring. We explain how each bias shapes the decision-making process on adaptation and theorize how emotions of different valence and arousal affect this process. We shed light on the underlying mechanisms that explain how emotions influence the effect of cognitive biases as a source of inaction on adaptation in firms. Our analysis provides a new perspective on how firms approach the strategic decision to adapt to climate change by considering both cognitive and emotional aspects.

A multi-modal driver emotion dataset and study: Including facial expressions and synchronized physiological signals

To address the limitations of databases in the field of emotion recognition and to cater to the trend of integrating data from multiple sources, we have established a multi-modal emotional dataset based on spontaneous expression of drivers. By selecting emotional induction materials and inducing emotions before each driving task, facial expression videos and synchronous physiological signals of the drivers during driving were collected. The dataset includes records of 64 participants under five different emotions (neutral, happy, angry, sad, and fear), and the emotional valence, arousal, and peak time of all participants in each driving task were recorded. To analyze the dataset, spatio-temporal convolutional neural networks were designed to analyze the different modalities of data with varying durations in the dataset, aiming to investigate their performance in emotion recognition. The results demonstrate that the fusion of multi-modal data significantly improves the accuracy of driver's emotion recognition, with accuracy increases of 11.28% and 6.83% compared to using only facial video signals or physiological signals, respectively. Therefore, the publication and analysis of multi-modal emotional data for driving scenarios is crucial to support further research in the fields of multimodal perception and intelligent transportation engineering.

The effects of emotion on retrospective duration memory using virtual reality.

Our memories for temporal duration may be colored by the emotions we experience during an event. While emotion generally enhances some aspects of memory, temporal duration has been shown to be particularly susceptible to emotion-induced distortions. However, prior work has faced difficulty when studying this phenomenon, having to make some trade-offs on ecological validity or experimental control. Here, we sought to bridge this gap by studying the effects of emotion on temporal duration memory using virtual reality. In the present study, a final sample of 69 participants experienced a series of negative-emotional and neutral worlds within virtual reality. Following this, participants provided ratings of emotionality (arousal, valence, pleasantness) and retrospective duration estimates (i.e., remembered time). We hypothesized that negative events would be recalled as having a greater duration than neutral events (H1). We additionally hypothesized that negative, but not neutral, events would be recalled as being longer than the true duration (H2). The results supported H1 while failing to provide evidence in support of H2. Together, the results bolster the importance of emotion, especially negative emotion, in shaping how we remember the temporal unfolding of the past.

TIFFS, TOSSES, AND TURNS: EFFECTS OF AFFECTIVE REACTIVITY TO INTERPERSONAL STRESSORS DURING THE DAY ON NIGHTLY SLEEP

Abstract Background Sleep has been recognized as an antecedent as well as a consequence of daytime stress. However, less research has compared the role of different stressor types on same-night sleep in the context of daily life. Interpersonal stressors may be particularly important, given that social stressors to elicit greater stress responses than other forms of stressors. This study tested the hypothesis that following days when a person exhibits greater negative affect (NA) reactivity to stressors (versus on days with less NA reactivity), sleep quality will be lower. This link between affective reactivity to stressors and subsequent sleep was expected to be more pronounced for interpersonal stressors versus non-interpersonal stressors. Methods In this pre-registered study, 252 adults in British Columbia, Canada (ages 25 to 87y; 68% women; 64% White) completed mobile surveys 5x/day for 14 days to assess daily stressors and NA. Self-reported sleep quality was assessed in morning surveys. Multilevel-models tested daily stressors (interpersonal, non-interpersonal, or no stressors), daily NA (averaged across the day), and their interaction as predictors of subsequent sleep quality, controlling for prior-night sleep quality and sociodemographics. Results Daily NA and stressor occurrence independently predicted poorer subsequent sleep quality. Stressor type moderated the relationship between NA and sleep quality, such that this association was stronger for interpersonal compared to non-interpersonal stressors. Discussion The findings suggest that encountering interpersonal stressors may be particularly impactful to one’s subsequent sleep. Future studies should consider investigating potential mechanisms that may underlie this association, such as pre-sleep cognitive, emotional, and physiological arousal.

Understanding the effect of group emotions on consumer instant order cancellation behavior in livestreaming E-commerce: Empirical evidence from TikTok

Livestreaming e-commerce (LSE) exhibits a noteworthy idiosyncrasy in the form of escalating instant order cancellations, wherein consumers swiftly revoke their purchases during livestreaming before receiving the products. This study leveraged the emotional contagion theory to construct an econometric model and investigate the factors influencing viewers' instant order cancellation behaviors. An extensive dataset was assembled, comprising 4984 product introduction video segments from 768 TikTok livestreaming rooms in China, along with 1.29 million bullet screen comments and 513,551 viewers' information. Employing advanced multimodal data processing technologies, the study extracted anchors' (livestreaming hosts) multimodal emotion features. The empirical findings demonstrate the significant impact of anchors' emotions, encompassing body movements, facial expressions, voices, and conversation contents, on the arousal and valence of group emotions, where the latter exhibit opposing effects on instant order cancellation behavior. This research establishes the paramount roles of anchor and group emotions in viewers' instant order cancellation behaviors, lending credence to the epistemological applicability of emotional contagion theory in the context of LSE. The study's findings offer LSE practitioners practical implications to enhance business decision-making, fostering more engaging and emotionally resonant livestreaming experiences to reduce cancellations and improve customer retention.

The influence of interoceptive accuracy on the verbalization of emotions

Interoception, which pertains to the physiological state of the body, is associated with subjective emotional experiences. In particular, the accuracy of perceiving interoceptive signals (interoceptive accuracy [IAcc]) is linked to the intensity of emotional arousal, known as arousal focus (AF). IAcc is believed to influence the granularity of emotional experiences. Here, we examined the relationship between IAcc and assessment and verbalisation of one's own or others' emotions. Study I demonstrated that individuals with higher IAcc exhibited significantly greater AF when evaluating their own positive emotions. Furthermore, although no correlation between IAcc and AF was found in free descriptions of emotions, a significant positive correlation was found between IAcc and the number of emotion-related words. Study II showed that individuals with higher IAcc displayed significantly higher AF when assessing the positive emotions of characters in videos. Additionally, in free descriptions of these characters, a significant positive correlation was observed between predicted verbal IQ and the number of emotion-related words. These findings support the notion that interoception is associated with AF during assessment of one's own or others' positive emotions as well as the abundance of emotion-related words. This study demonstrates the relationship between bodily sensations and social aspects of human embodiment.

The Facts or the Story? It Takes Both to Sensitize People About Unknown Health Hazards

Communicating about new or unknown health risks is challenging because it requires audiences to engage with and process novel and often complex health information. This study examines how texts can convey awareness and increase knowledge about health risks people are unaware of. The focus is on how text genre (narrative, expository, and mixed-genre) affects relevant emotional (arousal, transportation) and cognitive outcomes (knowledge and risk severity), measured using both online (electrodermal activity) and offline self-report measures. Mixed-effects model analyses revealed that narrative texts exhibit the highest self-reported arousal, transportation, and risk severity. Additionally, transportation mediates the relationship between text genre and risk severity. Ultimately, mixed-genre texts produced significantly higher arousal peaks and confidence ratings on knowledge posttests compared to expository texts. Taken together, the findings suggest that narrative texts perform better at raising awareness, whereas mixed-genre texts seem more effective in learning. The implications for health risk communication are discussed.

Epinephrine injected into the basolateral amygdala affects anxiety-like behavior and memory performance in stressed rats

The amygdala is known to mediate in moderating the impacts of emotional arousal and stress on memory. According to a growing body of research, the basolateral amygdala (BLA) is an important locus for integrating neuromodulator influences coordinating the retrieval of different types of memory and anxiety. This study aimed to investigate how the epinephrine in the BLA affects hippocampal fear memory, anxiety, and plasticity in control and stressed rats. For four days, male Wistar rats were exposed to electrical foot-shock stress. Animals received bilateral micro-injections of either vehicle or epinephrine (1 µg/side) into the BLA over four days (5 min before foot-shock stress). Behavioral characteristics (fear memory and anxiety-like behavior), histological features and electrophysiological parameters were investigated. Epinephrine injection into BLA resulted in a considerable impairment of fear memory in stressed rats. On the other hand, epinephrine effectively affected fear memory in control rats. Under stress conditions, epinephrine in the BLA is thought to increase anxiety-like behaviors. Treatment with epinephrine significantly increases the slope of fEPSP in the CA1 region of the hippocampus in the control and stress rats. In different groups, foot-shock stress had no effect on the apical and basal dendritic length in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. These results indicate that activating adrenergic receptors diminish fear memory and anxiety-like behaviors in the foot-shock stress, which this impact is independent of CA1 long-term potentiation induction.

Carbohydrate mouth rinse improves performance of mentally fatigued cyclists despite null effects on psychological responses

Mental fatigue reduces exercise performance through an impaired psychological response such as increased perceived exertion. Carbohydrate (CHO) mouth rinses improve exercise performance and perceived exertion likely due to an improved activation in cerebral reward areas, then we investigated if the CHO mouth rinse-improved exercise performance in mentally fatigued individuals was associated with ameliorated reward-related psychological responses. We hypothesised that CHO mouth rinse would be beneficial for mentally fatigued cyclists mainly in high-metabolic disturbance intensities. After familiarization and baseline sessions, well trained cyclists (n = 20) performed a maximal incremental test (MIT) after mental fatigue induction. They completed the MIT either without mouth rinse (MF) or rinsing their mouth with CHO (MF+CHO) or placebo (FM+PLA) solutions at every 25 % of the MIT. Psychological responses such as ratings of perceived exertion (RPE), affective valence, emotional arousal, and motivation were assessed throughout the MIT, while performance was assessed as peak power output and time of exercise. Mental fatigue reduced MIT performance (P < 0.05), but CHO mouth rinse was effective to counteract this deleterious mental fatigue effect (P < 0.05). However, we found null effects of CHO mouth rinses in psychological responses above the VT2 (P > 0.05) such as RPE, affective valence, emotional arousal, and motivation. Correlational analysis showed a significant, but moderate negative correlation between motivation and time of exercise above the VT2 when participants used CHO mouth rinse. In conclusion, the ergogenic CHO mouth rinse effects on MIT performance of mentally fatigued cyclists were irrespective of ameliorated psychological responses to exercise.

Emotional Enhancement of Memory in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Systematic Review

AbstractBackgroundProgressive decline in episodic memory is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Emotional arousal is known to enhance memory. The amygdala, locus coeruleus, hippocampus, and other regions, are key brain structures involved in the facilitation of memory through emotions. Amygdala‐mediated enhanced encoding of emotionally arousing stimuli or events may improve memory in AD patients, however whether this effect is present in patients with AD remains unclear.MethodA systematic search of the literature was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines to identify relevant literature on emotional enhancement of memory (EEM) in AD. We utilized MEDLINE and PsycInfo. Search terms related to emotional memory and Alzheimer’s were searched as keywords and mapped to medical subject headings.Result1545 studies were screened; 40 were included. Participant age ranged from 64 to 84 years. Sample sizes ranged from 20 to 126. Only 11 of the 40 (27.5%) included brain MRI and evaluation of amygdala volume. 34 studies examined long‐term memory. Results showed that 12 out of 34 studies (35.3%) showed clear EEM for long‐term memory among participant with AD. A further 10 studies (29.4%) found that EEM was influenced by stimuli type, valence of emotion, level of encoding, or intensity of emotion. Yet 12 studies (35.3%) found no effect of EEM in AD. Of the 6 studies that specifically explored flashbulb memories in AD, 3 found no EEM and 3 observed that the effect was content‐dependent, such that personal details were remembered more often than factual details of events.ConclusionStudies which included brain imaging showed that amygdala volume is the strongest predictor of EEM in AD, regardless of level of cognitive impairment. The conflicting literature on EEM in AD reveals the importance of evaluating volumes or networks of brain regions known to be involved in emotional memory processing. AD patients included in these studies likely had varying degrees of atrophy in the amygdala, locus coeruleus, hippocampus and frontal regions involved in modulating emotional memories. However, without confirmation from brain imaging, the integrity of these brain structures cannot be established. Future studies are needed to confirm whether atrophy of important brain regions diminishes EEM in AD.

Armida on the Beach: A Cinquecento Rhetorical Model of the Emotions and Its Musical Reception

Abstract For music to arouse the emotions, observes the sixteenth-century Venetian music theorist Gioseffo Zarlino, four ingredients are required: harmony, rhythm, text, and “a well-disposed subject [soggetto ben disposto] fit to receive some emotion [passione].” The last point—that listeners must be properly “disposed” toward an emotion before they can be moved—features in contemporaneous writings as diverse as Torquato Tasso’s epic Gerusalemme liberata (1581) and Bartolomeo Cavalcanti’s manual on oratory La retorica (1558). The present article unveils this neglected aspect of Cinquecento theories of music and emotion and explores its relevance to the Italian madrigal. Specifically, I propose the importance to sixteenth-century conversations about music and the affetti of what I call the two-stage model of emotional arousal, a paradigm according to which the onset of emotion in any listener takes place in two phases: first, a subtle inclination toward a given emotion; and second, the true “movement” of the soul that constitutes the emotion itself. Hitherto unidentified in both musicology and the humanities in general, this model stems, I show, from the ancient rhetorical tradition, with Aristotle’s Rhetoric its probable fons et origo. After tracing the model’s influence across a corpus of literary and theoretical texts, I study its implications for musical analysis in a madrigal cycle by Giaches de Wert on stanzas by Tasso: “Vezzosi augelli,” “Qual musico gentil,” and “Forsennata gridava,” all from the composer’s Ottavo libro de madrigali (1586). This case study invites reconsideration of staple text-setting devices of the genre, including declamatory homophony and the madrigalism.

Machine Learning Facial Emotion Classifiers in Psychotherapy Research: A Proof-of-Concept Study

Background: New advances in the field of machine learning make it possible to track facial emotional expression with high resolution, including micro-expressions. These advances have promising applications for psychotherapy research, since manual coding (e.g., the Facial Action Coding System), is time-consuming. Purpose: We tested whether this technology can reliably identify in-session emotional expression in a naturalistic treatment setting, and how these measures relate to the outcome of psychotherapy. Method: We applied a machine learning emotion classifier to video material from 389 psychotherapy sessions of 23 patients with borderline personality pathology. We validated the findings with human ratings according to the Clients Emotional Arousal Scale (CEAS) and explored associations with treatment outcomes. Results: Overall, machine learning ratings showed significant agreement with human ratings. Machine learning emotion classifiers, particularly the display of positive emotions (smiling and happiness), showed medium effect size on median-split treatment outcome (d = 0.3) as well as continuous improvement (r = 0.49, p < 0.05). Patients who dropped out form psychotherapy, showed significantly more neutral expressions, and generally less social smiling, particularly at the beginning of psychotherapeutic sessions. Conclusions: Machine learning classifiers are a highly promising resource for research in psychotherapy. The results highlight differential associations of displayed positive and negative feelings with treatment outcomes. Machine learning emotion recognition may be used for the early identification of drop-out risks and clinically relevant interactions in psychotherapy.

Heart rate variability alterations in takotsubo syndrome and related association with psychological factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Psychological factors may have a precipitant role in takotsubo syndrome (TS). Aberrant Heart Rate Variability (HRV) has been reported in TS, suggesting inflexibility of the autonomous nervous system. Nevertheless, results on HRV alterations and their link with psychological factors in TS are conflicting. This work aimed to systematically explore whether TS may be associated with HRV alterations and their association with specific psychological profiles in TS patients. A literature search was conducted across databases (Pubmed, Scopus, PsycInfo, Web of Science) and empirical studies including TS patients which were evaluated in one or more HRV indices were retrieved. HRV and psychological outcomes were extracted. 10 empirical studies with 194 TS patients were included. Results showed significant alteration of HRV in TS patients, with indices compared to controls, and a progressive increase over time. Nevertheless, retrieved data presented mixed results, as also shown by a large heterogeneity in the meta-analytic findings. 2 studies found significant relationships between HRV alterations and trait—rather than state—psychological outcomes (i.e., coping strategies and emotional arousal), pointing to the need to explore the role of psychological vulnerabilities, rather than single traumatic stressors, in the association between HRV and TS.

Becoming aware of an authentic historic place: effects on affective and cognitive outcomes

The present study addressed the effects of becoming aware of being at an authentic historic place both on affective reactions and acquisition of information about the relevant historic events. The study was conducted in a research institute located in a former National Socialist (NS) clinic, thus holding an authentic historic dimension, while at the same time, the building’s physical attributes do not resemble its history anymore. This allowed us to manipulate the participants’ awareness of being at an authentic historic place via systematic variation of prior information (neutral information about the building, general information about a historic event, information about the authenticity of the place regarding the historic event). After receiving prior information, participants had to indicate their emotional valence and arousal. They were then shown a set of photographs related to the relevant historical period or to another unrelated period in randomized order and, after a filler task, were given a memory test of the photographs. Afterwards, participants rated the study room regarding its valence and evoking arousal. It was found that awareness of being at an authentic place had a negative effect on personal mood. Furthermore, the site itself was perceived less positively when participants were aware of its NS history. However, no differences in memory performance of relevant photos were found due to history awareness. The findings indicate that being at an authentic historic place does not necessarily imply a better acquisition of relevant historical knowledge.

Independent associations of food addiction and binge eating measures with real-time eating behaviors and contextual factors: An exploratory ecological momentary assessment study

Food addiction (FA) is a concept centered around the addictive potential of highly palatable processed foods, though there is debate over the discriminative validity of FA as a distinct construct from binge-eating symptomatology. This study explored how trait measures of FA and binge-eating symptoms independently and interactively predicted eating behaviors and posited correlates of FA and binge eating measured via ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Adult participants (N = 49) who met the criteria for FA and/or binge-eating disorder completed baseline measures of FA (Yale Food Addiction Scale [YFAS 2.0]) and binge-eating symptoms (Eating Pathology Symptom Inventory [EPSI] binge eating scale) followed by a 10-day EMA protocol. Generalized linear mixed models examined the independent effects of YFAS 2.0, EPSI, and their interaction predicting EMA outcomes. Higher YFAS 2.0 symptom count scores were uniquely related to greater EMA-measured overeating, loss of control eating, negative and positive affect, and impulsivity when controlling for EPSI scores. Conversely, higher EPSI scores were uniquely related to greater EMA-measured eagerness and urge to eat, and expectancies that eating would improve mood. No interaction effects were significant. These results highlight potential distinctions between phenomena captured by FA and other measures of binge eating, in that FA symptoms may be a marker of heightened binge-eating severity, emotional arousal, and impulsivity.

Reaching beneath the tip of the iceberg: A guide to the Freiburg Multimodal Interaction Corpus

Abstract Most corpora tacitly subscribe to a speech-only view filtering out anything that is not a ‘word’ and transcribing the spoken language merely orthographically despite the fact that the “speech-only view on language is fundamentally incomplete” (Kok 2017, 2) due to the deep intertwining of the verbal, vocal, and kinesic modalities (Levinson and Holler 2014). This article introduces the Freiburg Multimodal Interaction Corpus (FreMIC), a multimodal and interactional corpus of unscripted conversation in English currently under construction. At the time of writing, FreMIC comprises (i) c. 29 h of video-recordings transcribed and annotated in detail and (ii) automatically (and manually) generated multimodal data. All conversations are transcribed in ELAN both orthographically and using Jeffersonian conventions to render verbal content and interactionally relevant details of sequencing (e.g. overlap, latching), temporal aspects (pauses, acceleration/deceleration), phonological aspects (e.g. intensity, pitch, stretching, truncation, voice quality), and laughter. Moreover, the orthographic transcriptions are exhaustively PoS-tagged using the CLAWS web tagger (Garside and Smith 1997). ELAN-based transcriptions also provide exhaustive annotations of re-enactments (also referred to as (free) direct speech, constructed dialogue, etc.) as well as silent gestures (meaningful gestures that occur without accompanying speech). The multimodal data are derived from psychophysiological measurements and eye tracking. The psychophysiological measurements include, inter alia, electrodermal activity or GSR, which is indicative of emotional arousal (e.g. Peräkylä et al. 2015). Eye tracking produces data of two kinds: gaze direction and pupil size. In FreMIC, gazes are automatically recorded using the area-of-interest technology. Gaze direction is interactionally key, for example, in turn-taking (e.g. Auer 2021) and re-enactments (e.g. Pfeiffer and Weiss 2022), while changes in pupil size provide a window onto cognitive intensity (e.g. Barthel and Sauppe 2019). To demonstrate what opportunities FreMIC’s (combination of) transcriptions, annotations, and multimodal data open up for research in Interactional (Corpus) Linguistics, this article reports on interim results derived from work-in-progress.

Leadership and Neurosciences - The analysis of emotional arousal during decision-making processes with decision-makers exposed to acute stress

Corporate leaders are constantly dealing with stress in parallel with continuous decision-making processes. The impact of acute stress on decision-making activities is a relevant area of study to evaluate the impact of the decisions made, and create tools and mechanisms to cope with the inevitable exposure to stress and better manage its impact. The intersection of leadership and neurosciences techniques is called Neuroleadership. In this work, an experiment is proposed to detect and measure the emotional arousal of two groups of business professionals, divided into two groups. The first one is the intervention/stress group, n=30, exposed to stressful conditions, and the control group, n=14, not exposed to stress. The participants are submitted to a sequence of computerized stimuli, such as watching videos, answering survey questions, and making decisions in a realistic office environment. The Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) biosensor monitors emotional arousal in real-time. The experiment design implemented stressors such as visual effects, defacement, unfairness, and time-constraint for the intervention group, followed by decision-making tasks. The results indicate that emotional arousal was statistically significantly higher for the intervention/stress group, considering Shapiro and Mann-Whitney tests. The work indicates that GSR is a reliable stress detector and may be useful to predict negative impacts on executive professionals during decision-making activities.