Mood Arousal Research Articles

The Impact of Music on Student Concentration: Exploring Genre and Productivity

Concentration is one of the most important factors in determining a person’s efficiency and work ethic. There has not been much study done on the manipulation of concentration to determine its direct effects on efficiency. Listening to music while studying has also become prominent in Generation Z. This paper strives to explore the correlation between listening to music and adolescents’ concentration levels. A literature review was conducted using Google Scholar and a study was conducted on 25 high school students from the same school in Georgia. The Mozart effect and Arousal Mood hypothesis were explored within the literature review to help understand why music affects people. The results indicated that those with higher productivity tend to listen to music less. This negative finding as obtained from the study does not support the current trend of listening to music while studying. This study enriches the research on music and sparks necessary future investigations on specifics such as genre. These specifics would deepen our understanding which could make music an even more powerful tool.

Structured Gaussian Process Regression of Music Mood

Modeling the music mood has wide applications in music categorization, retrieval, and recommendation systems; however, it is challenging to computationally model the affective content of music due to its subjective nature. In this work, a structured regression framework is proposed to model the valence and arousal mood dimensions of music using a single regression model at a linear computational cost. To tackle the subjectivity phenomena, a confidence-interval based estimated consensus is computed by modeling the behavior of various annotators (e.g. biased, adversarial) and is shown to perform better than using the average annotation values. For a compact feature representation of music clips, variational Bayesian inference is used to learn the Gaussian mixture model representation of acoustic features and chord-related features are used to improve the valence estimation by probing the chord progressions between chroma frames. The dimensionality of features is further reduced using an adaptive version of kernel PCA. Using an efficient implementation of twin Gaussian process for structured regression, the proposed work achieves a significant improvement in R2 for arousal and valence dimensions relative to state-of-the-art techniques on two benchmark datasets for music mood estimation.

Improving interoception and self-disgust in the treatment of patients with anorexia nervosa

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a mental disorder in which sufficient evidence points towards the presence of a high level of disturbed interoception and self-disgust. High arousal mood induction is a therapeutic technique that helps improve a patient's interoceptive capacities. With some adjustments to this technique such as adding a challenging behavior that induces a “flow” state or a mindfulness component such as in mindful awareness in body-oriented therapy (MABT), it is expected that patients with AN may benefit from an integrative treatment strategy that helps them improve their symptoms of high self-disgust and low interoception.

RETRACTED: Stimulus organism response model based analysis on consumers’ online impulse buying behavior

In this paper, the “stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R)” analysis framework of environmental psychology is applied to the research of online consumer behavior, and the mechanism of the effect of information quality factors on impulsive buying behavior is discussed. From the perspective of consumer emotion, the paper analyzes the path and mechanism of impulse buying behavior under the stimulation of richness, vividness and reliability characteristics of website information, and the elicitation of consumer pleasure and arousal emotion. A model of impulse buying behavior in network environment is proposed. The structural equation model is used to analyze 333 questionnaires, and the conclusions are as follows: (1) The richness, vividness and reliability of the information on the website positively affect the mood of pleasure; (2) The pleasurable emotion and arousal emotion positively influence the impulse buying behavior; (3) The richness, vividness and reliability of website information positively affect arousal mood is not significant.

Analysing the effects of working period on psychophysiological states of seafarers.

Human factor has become a critical issue due to the fact that all operational processes in maritime transportation have been accelerated with technological innovations. Irregular and long working hours, rapid change of working environments and other organisational and/or individual factors have negative impact on the performance of the seafarers as well as other transportation workers and/or shift workers. Seafarers working under the influence of these stressor factors, naturally, are affected from psychophysiological and cognitive aspects, which in return decrease their overall performances. The study mainly aimed to investigate which of the above mentioned affecting factors had greater impact on seafarers' performances. For this purpose, data for 14 healthy male seafarers on board different vessels was collected. The collected data included the number of port visits, frequency of change of circadian rhythm, total working hours and watchkeeping periods in the recent month. In order to analyse the psychophysiological effect of working period, electrodermal activity and heart rate variability measurements for arousal mood and data from 2-choice reaction time tests for cognitive performance were collected from the seafarers. Obtained data was analysed in SPSS software programme applying multiple regression with factor analysis to model the dependence between psychophysiological states of seafarers and working periods. According to the results, it was determined that the change of circadian rhythm is the main determinant factor for seafarers. The results showed that when seafarer's circadian rhythm is changed more frequently, they experience more drowsiness.

Neural correlates of the popular music phenomenon: evidence from functional MRI and PET imaging.

Music can induce different emotions. However, its neural mechanism remains unknown. The aim of this study was to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and position emission tomography (PET) imaging for mapping of neural changes under the most popular music in healthy volunteers. Blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI and monoamine receptor PET imaging with 11C-N-methylspiperone (11C-NMSP) were conducted under the popular music Gangnam Style and light music A Comme Amour in healthy subjects. PET and fMRI images were analyzed by using the Statistical Parametric Mapping software (SPM). Significantly increased fMRI BOLD signals were found in the bilateral superior temporal cortices, left cerebellum, left putamen and right thalamus cortex. Monoamine receptor availability was increased significantly in the left superior temporal gyrus and left putamen, but decreased in the bilateral superior occipital cortices under the Gangnam Style compared with the light music condition. Significant positive correlation was found between 11C-NMSP binding and fMRI BOLD signals in the left temporal cortex. Furthermore, increased 11C-NMSP binding in the left putamen was positively correlated with the mood arousal level score under the Gangnam Style condition. Popular music Gangnam Style can arouse pleasure experience and strong emotional response. The left putamen is positively correlated with the mood arousal level score under the Gangnam Style condition. Our results revealed characteristic patterns of brain activity associated with Gangnam Style, and may also provide more general insights into the music-induced emotional processing.

An arousal-based explanation of affect dynamics

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of pre-existing mood valence, mood arousal and ad-evoked arousal on response to television and print advertising. It combined the arousal-as-information and arousal regulation approaches into a single arousal congruence theory. It sought an extended application of arousal congruence theory in the persuasion domain with several novel findings. Design/methodology/approach Four experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. Analysis of variance, multivariate analysis of variance and pairwise comparison were used for data analysis. Findings Consumer judgment is a joint function of mood valence, mood arousal and ad-evoked arousal. Positive mood does not always generate more positive evaluations and vice versa. Ad-evoked arousal can more strongly influence consumers’ judgments when they are in a negative rather than a positive mood. Furthermore, consumers in a positive mood rate a target more favorably when the ad-evoked arousal level is congruent with their current arousal state, while those in a negative mood rate a target more favorably when the ad-evoked arousal level is incongruent with their current state of arousal. Arousal polarization intensifies such congruence (and incongruence) effects. Practical implications The findings reveal a mood-lifting opportunity based on ad-evoked arousal. This has implications for the design of advertisements, promotional materials, marketing campaigns and retailing environments. Originality/value This paper’s findings highlight unexpected effects of stimulus-evoked arousal in persuasion when consumers are exposed to multiple emotional cues from the environment. The paper demonstrates the utility of an integrated model, explaining the relative importance of valence and arousal in influencing consumer judgments. It has been the first to examine arousal congruence, arousal polarization and arousal regulation mechanisms jointly.

Therapeutic Horse Riding Improves Cognition, Mood Arousal, and Ambulation in Children with Dyspraxia

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of the physical motion of a horse (riding therapy) combined with the audiovisual perception of this motion on a group of children with dyspraxia in terms of cognition, mood arousal, and gait variability. The study design was a pretest/post-test. The study was conducted at the Fettercairn Youth Horse Project, Fettercairn, Tallaght, Dublin. Forty (40) children ranging from 6 to 15 years of age with a primary diagnosis of dyspraxia were the study subjects. Children meeting inclusion criteria participated in six 30-minute horse-riding sessions and two 30-minute audiovisual screening sessions. A Standard Progressive Matrices test (also known as the Ravens test) was used to measure aspects of general intelligence. A Childhood Depression Inventory (CDI) questionnaire was used to assess cognitive, affective, and behavioral signs of depression. A GAITRite Pressure Mapping System analyzed foot function and gait variability by measuring single and double support, cycle time, cadence, toe in/out, and stride length. Significant improvements were evident on the Ravens test and the CDI by the end of the study period. The amount of both single and double support required while completing the walking task also was significantly reduced. Improvements were visible on toe in/out values, cycle time, and cadence. Changes in stride length did not reach statistical significance. These findings support the theory that riding therapy and/or the perception of beat-based rhythms, as experienced by the rider on the horse, stimulates cognition, mood, and gait parameters. In addition, the data also pointed to the potential value of an audiovisual approach to equine therapy.

Influences of mood valence and arousal on the breadth of visual attentional focus: An ERP study

Event Abstract Back to Event Influences of mood valence and arousal on the breadth of visual attentional focus: An ERP study Hiroki Moriya1* and Hiroshi Nittono1 1 Hiroshima University, Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Japan Aims: Affective states are thought to modulate the breadth of attention, with positive moods broadening and negative moods narrowing visual attentional focus. Although traditional research addressing the effects of moods on the breadth of attention has emphasized the effects of affective valence (i.e., pleasant vs. unpleasant), the role of arousal associated with moods has remained unclear. In this study, we examined the effects of both mood valence and mood arousal on the breadth of attentional focus by using event-related potentials (ERPs). Method: Twenty-four students performed a flanker task under high-arousal positive, high-arousal negative, low-arousal positive, and low-arousal negative moods, which were induced by music and imagery. Simultaneously with the flanker task stimuli, a white rectangle ‘probe’ stimulus was presented at one of four locations (inner probes: 0.5 degrees left or right from the central letter, outer probes: 1.5 degrees left or right from the central letter). The amplitudes of P1 (95-105 ms post-stimulus) and N1 (140-160 ms post-stimulus) in response to the probe stimulus were used as indices of the amount of attention allocated to a particular position. Results: Subjective affective ratings confirmed that the mood-induction procedures effectively produced the target moods. The amplitudes of P1 and N1 were larger for inner probes than for outer probes, indicating that attention was focused on the central letter. This probe position effect was smaller under positive moods than under negative moods. Moreover, the effect was reduced and became statistically non-significant in the low-arousal positive moods. Conclusions: Positive moods broaden attentional focus at the early sensory input stages, in comparison to negative moods. This effect is most prominent when mood arousal is low. Our results suggest that the effect of positive moods on breadth of attention is modulated by mood arousal. Keywords: mood, Attention, Event-related potentials, Visual Processing, Arousal Conference: ASP2013 - 23rd Annual meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Wollongong, Australia, 20 Nov - 22 Nov, 2013. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Emotion Citation: Moriya H and Nittono H (2013). Influences of mood valence and arousal on the breadth of visual attentional focus: An ERP study. Conference Abstract: ASP2013 - 23rd Annual meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.213.00037 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 22 Oct 2013; Published Online: 05 Nov 2013. * Correspondence: Dr. Hiroki Moriya, Hiroshima University, Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima, 739-8521, Japan, moriyah228@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Hiroki Moriya Hiroshi Nittono Google Hiroki Moriya Hiroshi Nittono Google Scholar Hiroki Moriya Hiroshi Nittono PubMed Hiroki Moriya Hiroshi Nittono Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Delineating potential mechanisms of implicit alcohol cognitions: Drinking restraint, negative affect, and their relationship with approach alcohol associations.

Problem drinkers may use alcohol to avoid negative mood states and may develop implicit cognitive associations between negative emotional states and reinforcing properties of drinking. It is paradoxical that attempts to control drinking, such as among those high in drinking restraint, may inadvertently increase desire to drink and subsequent alcohol consumption, and this may be exaggerated under times of emotional distress when urges to drink are high. We examined whether individuals who are high on drinking restraint would demonstrate stronger alcohol-related thoughts elicited by stimuli that represent the desire to use alcohol, in response to stronger versus weaker negative mood arousal. Seventy hazardous drinkers completed measurements of drinking restraint, alcohol consumption, and consequences of use. After being randomized to view negative or positive pictures sets, participants completed an Implicit Association Task (IAT) to test differences in the strength of the association between desire to approach or avoid alcohol or water cues, and then a measurement of subjective craving following the IAT. Regression analyses showed that trait restriction not temptation was positively related to IAT scores, after controlling for relevant covariates and explained 7% of the total variance. Trait temptation not IAT predicted subjective craving. Negative affect was unrelated to IAT scores, singly or in conjunction with measures of drinking restraint, contrary to predictions. In sum, implicit alcohol cognitions are related to attempts to restrict drinking not temptation to drink and are less strongly influenced by mood state.

Using implementation intentions to overcome the effect of mood on risky behaviour

Two experiments investigated whether forming an if-then plan or implementation intention could break the link between mood and risky behaviour. In Expt 1, participants planned how to deal with unpleasant moods. Next, as part of an ostensibly unrelated experiment, participants underwent a disguised mood induction before rating their willingness to perform a series of risky behaviours. Unpleasant mood increased subsequent risk willingness among participants who did not form a plan but did not influence risk willingness among participants who formed an implementation intention. In Expt 2, mood arousal was manipulated and participants then undertook a gambling task. One-half of the sample formed implementation intentions that focused attention on the odds of winning. Greater arousal led to more risky betting among control participants. However, forming an implementation intention promoted good risk awareness and, consequently, shielded participants' task performance from the effects of arousal. Taken together, the findings suggest that people can strategically avoid the detrimental effect of unpleasant mood and arousal on risk by forming implementation intentions directed at controlling either the experience of mood or the risky behaviour.

Attentional negativity bias moderated by positive mood arousal

Automatically allocation of more attention to negative stimuli is called emotional negativity bias. An event-related potentials (ERPs) experiment investigated whether or not this bias was altered by positive mood arousal. The results suggested that the attention bias towards negative stimuli was attenuated when positive information was accessible.

Momentary pain and coping in temporomandibular disorder pain: Exploring mechanisms of cognitive behavioral treatment for chronic pain

The purpose of this study was to determine whether cognitive–behavioral treatment (CBT) operates by effecting changes in cognitions, affects, and coping behaviors in the context of painful episodes. Patients were 54 men and women with temporomandibular dysfunction-related orofacial pain (TMD) enrolled in a study of brief (6weeks) standard conservative treatment (STD) or standard treatment plus CBT (STD+CBT). Momentary affects, pain, and coping processes were recorded on a cell phone keypad four times per day for 7days prior to treatment, and for 14days after treatment had finished, in an experience sampling paradigm. Analyses indicated no treatment effects on general retrospective measures of pain, depression, or pain-related interference with lifestyle at post-treatment. However, mixed model analyses on momentary pain and coping recorded pre- and post-treatment indicated that STD+CBT patients reported greater decreases in pain than did STD patients, significantly greater increases in the use of active cognitive and behavioral coping, and significantly decreased catastrophization. Analyses of experience sampling data indicated that post-treatment momentary pain was negatively predicted by concurrent active coping, self-efficacy, perceived control over pain, and positive-high arousal affect. Concurrent catastrophization was strongly predictive of pain. Active behavioral coping and self-efficacy reported at the prior time point (about 3h previously) were also protective, while prior catastrophization and negative-high arousal mood were predictive of momentary pain. The results suggest that CB treatment for TMD pain can help patients alter their coping behaviors, and that these changes translate into improved outcomes.

Alcohol and tobacco cessation in alcohol-dependent smokers: analysis of real-time reports.

Alcohol-tobacco interactions and relapse precipitants were examined among alcohol-dependent smokers in a trial of concurrent alcohol and tobacco treatment. After discharge from treatment, participants completed 14 days of electronic diary (ED) assessments of mood, self-efficacy, urges to drink or smoke, and drinking and smoking behavior. ED data revealed an increase in frequency of alcohol urges after smoking episodes. Drinking relapse episodes were predicted by prior ED ratings of low self-efficacy to resist drinking and high urge to smoke. Smoking relapse episodes were predicted by high urge to smoke and high negative, high arousal mood. Results support a cross-substance cue reactivity model of multiple substance use and a limited-strength model, but not a cross-substance coping model.

222. Facilitation of prefrontal function in schizophrenia by increasing socioaffective input

The role of prefrontal cortex in working memory and executive function is well described but the frontal lobe is also crucial for integrating and modulating affective and social behavior. Three studies were conducted to examine the effects of affective salience, arousal and reward on prefrontal function, as assessed by working memory tasks in schizophrenia patients. Working memory deficits are present in about 80% of schizophrenia patients, resistant to anti-psychotic drug treatments and associated with social functioning. In the first study, we examined the effects of affective salience of the target on spatial working memory. Increasing the salience of the target facilitates working memory in schizophrenia patients and the affective valence of the target contributes to the improvement. In Study 2, we examined the role of social (human) vs. non-social (computer) reinforcement on working memory and found that only the human, social reinforcement facilitates working memory in schizophrenia patients. In Study 3, the role of positive mood arousal on working memory was examined. We manipulated the mood arousal by showing film clips. Salivary cortisol levels, heart rate, and blood pressure were measured. Facilitation of working memory in schizophrenia occured after they viewed a film clip which invites participation by the patient but not after viewing a comic clip which does not invite participation. These results suggest that affective and social modulation of working memory function is significant in schizophrenia and point to the importance of integrating “affect” and “cognition” in studies of frontal lobe function.

Mood states associated with transitory changes in asthma symptoms and peak expiratory flow.

This study examined the within-person relations between transitory changes in mood, asthma symptoms, and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR). Thrice-daily for 21 consecutive days, 48 adults with moderate to severe asthma entered information in palm-top computers about their mood and asthma symptoms. A multidimensional model of mood, ie, the mood circumplex, informed the assessment of mood arousal and mood pleasantness. At each observation, participants also recorded their PEFR with peak flow meters that stored blinded data. Albuterol doses were also monitored electronically. Before and after the 21-day study, spirometric measures of airways obstruction were taken under controlled conditions. Random effects regression models revealed a significant, but weak, within-person relation between symptoms and PEFR. Changes in mood vectors with an arousal component were significantly related to PEFR changes, whereas changes in mood vectors with a pleasantness component tracked changes in asthma symptom reports, even after adjustment for contemporaneous PEFR and after controlling for time of day and albuterol dosing. Comparison of spirometric assessments with unsupervised PEFR suggested that part of the relation between mood arousal and PEFR may be attributable to the "effort-dependence" of peak flow self-monitoring. Different dimensions of mood were associated with transitory changes in asthma symptoms and PEFR. This may be one reason why individuals with asthma misperceive the severity of their symptoms in relation to underlying airways obstruction.

The effects of mood state on judgemental accuracy: Processing strategy as a mechanism

Abstract Under commonly observed conditions, happy subjects appear to process information in a relatively passive or nonsystematic, less detailed manner and rely on peripheral cues and heuristics in judgement, whereas sad subjects appear to process in a more active or systematic, more detailed manner. Happy subjects should therefore display less accuracy on judgements that have a relatively objective accuracy criterion. Three studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. In Study 1, subjects who had training in statistics were exposed to a happy, neutral, or sad mood induction procedure. Subjects then judged the magnitude and direction of correlation coefficients associated with each of nine scatterplots. Happy subjects were least accurate and used fewest digits in their correlation estimates; sad subjects were most accurate and used most digits. In Study 2, subjects exposed to orthogonal affect and arousal mood inductions completed the correlation estimation task. To address process further, subjects provided ratings of their concentration on the task, their strategies for estimating the correlations, and explained the concept of a correlation. Happy subjects were least accurate, used fewest digits in their estimates, reported least concentration, provided least detail in their explanations of correlations, wrote least comprehensible explanations; however, they wrote most creative descriptions. Sad subjects displayed the opposite pattern. Arousal had minimal effects on all measures. In Study 3, processing strategy was directly manipulated by asking half of the subjects to think in detail while completing their correlation estimates and offering them a bonus point for good performance. The accuracy and digit effects shown in Studies 1 and 2 were replicated. Implications are discussed.

Recovery after oral surgery with halothane, enflurane, isoflurane or propofol anaesthesia

We have compared the recovery characteristics of four different techniques for maintenance of anaesthesia in 99 day-case patients admitted for oral surgery. All patients received propofol for induction of anaesthesia followed by halothane, enflurane, isoflurane or propofol infusion for maintenance of anaesthesia. Each patient was subjected to a battery of psychometric tests which included Spielberger state, trait, mood stress and mood arousal questionnaires, Maddox-Wing test and five-choice serial reaction time. All tests were performed before operation and at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 24 and 48 h after operation. Performance in the reaction time test decreased significantly in the immediate postoperative period, returning almost to preoperative values by 4 h. However, only those patients who received enflurane or propofol had returned to their performance level before surgery by 4 h, although all four groups had achieved this target by 24 h. There was a further improvement in performance at 48 h. Anxiety and stress were high before surgery and decreased rapidly in the postoperative period. The Maddox-Wing test demonstrated a significant impairment in performance in the first 1 h after surgery, which returned to normal by discharge at 4 h. There were no significant differences between the four groups in these latter tests.

The biopsychology of mood and arousal

Introduction Modern perspectives on mood Arousal: A basic element of mood and behaviour Daily rhythms of subjective energy and other biopsychological cycles Determinants of energetic and tense arousal, including cognitive-mood interactions The natural interaction of energetic and tense moods: A multidimensional arousal model Issues relating to formal and informal research on mood Toward an understanding of nonpathological mood states: Evidence, speculations, and applications Appendices References.

A stress and arousal mood scale for low vocabulary subjects: a reworking of Mackay et al. (1978).

In an experiment investigating patient mood in an out-patient setting, a Mood Adjective Checklist (Mackay et al., 1978) was administered to 189 patients before and after their consultations, obtaining 366 completed questionnaires. Both the stress and arousal scales in the Mackay et al. checklist contain unequal numbers of positive and negative items, and are thus subject to response bias. When the results were analysed, it was noted that some items in the checklist led to large numbers of question mark responses, and it was discovered that word frequency, used as an estimate of word unfamiliarity, was correlated with the use of the question mark. Furthermore, when question mark responses were treated as missing data, as recommended by Meddis (1972), the factor analytic distinction between stress and arousal disappeared. Next, items giving rise to 15 per cent or more question mark responses were omitted from analysis, and the remaining items factor analysed. The resulting checklist comprised nine high stress items, nine low stress items, four high arousal items and four low arousal items. Mackay et al.'s stress and arousal scales were reconstructed using these items; they were no longer subject to response bias, and were more accessible to low vocabulary subjects.