Subjective Emotional Experience Research Articles

The impact of stress on the risk decision-making process.

The effect of stress on risk-taking or risk-averse behavior in decision-making has been inconclusive in previous research, with few studies revealing the underlying neural mechanisms. This study employed event-related potentials technique and combined a social cold pressor assessment test with a mental arithmetic task to induce stress responses, aiming to investigate the influence of exogenous stress on the risk decision-making process. Stress induction results indicated that, in addition to raising heart rate and blood pressure, stress responses were accompanied by enhanced negative emotions, diminished positive emotions, and alterations in neural activity. The outcomes of risk decision-making showed that stress did not significantly affect risk preference or time of choice but did reduce the feedback-related negativity/reward positivity, with a particularly significant effect observed for large outcomes. Stress also altered the amplitude of the P3 component, with stress decreasing the P3 value for winning outcomes relative to losing outcomes. The study suggests that understanding how stress affects risk preference should consider the emotional valence induced by stress. Contrary to the reward sensitivity hypothesis, stress weakened reward sensitivity. Stress led to changes in the allocation of cognitive resources for outcome evaluation: compared to negative outcomes, stress reduced cognitive resources for positive outcomes, which might be related to the enhanced negative emotions induced by stress. The study highlights the importance of focusing on the subjective emotional experience induced by stress in future research on stress and risk decision-making.

Beyond built density: From coarse to fine-grained analyses of emotional experiences in urban environments

The migration of individuals to urban centers in the last century has coincided with a rise in stress-related mental health issues among city dwellers compared to their rural counterparts. Neurourbanism, a burgeoning field, seeks to comprehend the determinants of individual well-being within the urban context. This study investigated the impact of urban density on subjective emotional experiences with a focus on how urban density factors are operationalized in this research field. Using a remote desktop protocol coupled with eye tracking technology, we presented participants with realistic urban stimuli from Berlin, Germany, to assess gaze patterns and subjective responses. Following a two-step analytical approach, we first used a two-factorial design based on low/high built density and absent/present greenery, reflecting the common approach to operationalizing urban density. Subsequently, semantic segmentation of the stimuli was performed, providing a more fine-grained, continuous quantification of density factors allowing for a comparison of this approach with the first categorical analysis. Lastly, individual gaze patterns were exploratively analyzed to predict the impact of directed attention to different classes of urban density on subjective experiences. Dichotomous classification replicated previous findings indicating that high built density was associated with more negative subjective ratings compared to low density, and images lacking greenery received more negative ratings than those with green spaces. Using a continuous quantification of urban density factors and adding additional object classes (cars, people, sky) led to different results compared to the dichotomous approach. Gaze patterns only partially echoed subjective ratings, suggesting urban density factors influence ratings via a general urban scene impression without the need for directed attention towards them. These findings underscore the multifaceted influence of density factors on emotional appraisal in urban spaces, emphasizing the importance of chosen methods. The study demonstrates that fine-grained analyses of urban density factors enhance our understanding of how the urban environment affects the well-being of city dwellers.

Exploration of Consciousness : A Bridge among Science, Spirituality, Psychology and Philosophy

Consciousness, a crucial phenomenon, captivates the minds of philosophers, psychologist, scientists, and thinkers across history. This article embarks on a journey into the multifaceted realm of consciousness, traversing various disciplines such as philosophy, science, psychology, and spirituality. At its core, consciousness encompasses the subjective experience of awareness, embracing sensations, thoughts, emotions, and self-awareness. Theories diverge on its origins, with materialists attributing consciousness to neural processes, while dualists advocate for a mind-body duality. Integrated Information Theory and Global Workspace Theory offer contrasting perspectives on the mechanisms of consciousness, alongside Higher-Order Theories and Representational Theories of Consciousness. Despite strides in understanding, the "hard problem" of consciousness persists, challenging the explanation of subjective experience. Interdisciplinary collaboration seeks to unravel this mystery, exploring consciousness' unity, diversity, and implications in cognition, decision-making, and ethics. This article delves into the evolutionary, cultural, and philosophical dimensions of consciousness, contemplating its implications for artificial intelligence and fostering dialogue among diverse disciplines. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, we embark on a quest to deepen our understanding of consciousness, a journey sure to captivate generations to come

Phasic and tonic electrodermal activity in emotional responses to acoustic environments

The field of physiology of emotion has long attempted to establish the relationship between electrodermal activity (EDA), particularly skin conductance (SC), and subjective emotional experiences. However, there remains a lack of reliable SC parameters that reflect subjective emotions in response to the sensory experiences of real-world physical environments, due to their multiple and continuously changing stimuli. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the relationship between various SC parameters and subjective emotional responses to acoustic environments encountered in everyday life, and by proposing a novel SC parameter. Through a lab-based listening experiment involving 33 participants exposed to 36 sound stimuli that represent various everyday acoustic environments, this study reveals the distinct roles of phasic and tonic SC in emotional responses to physical environments. Phasic SC parameters are found to be highly associated with subjective emotions during exposure to environmental stimuli, while tonic SC parameters maintain relevance post-exposure. The experimental results further indicate that all SC parameters are primarily associated with the Arousal dimension of emotions and with positive-inactive and negative-active emotions, rather than with the Pleasantness dimension or with negative-inactive and positive-active emotions. Moreover, this study introduces a new phasic SC parameter, which demonstrates the best performance among all SC parameters in measuring the aforementioned highly associated subjective emotions during exposure to physical environments. These findings enhance our theoretical understanding and have potential applications in using SC parameters as practical tools for monitoring and understanding emotional responses to real-world physical environments.

146 Intracranial Correlates of Fear Memory in Freely Moving Humans During Virtual Reality

INTRODUCTION: Distressing reactions to perceived threats in safe environments is a hallmark feature of anxiety-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The development of targeted neural circuit therapies requires an understanding of how neurophysiological activity relates to behavior and subjective emotional experience. METHODS: The task induced memories fear memories, a critical component of anxiety-related disorders etiology, using a novel virtual reality platform. Here, participants freely explored a virtual reality environment via walking or joystick. Participants were instructed to stop movement following color change of the room. When the room turned green (CS+), a noxious virtual reality stimulus (insect) attacked the participant (US) 6 seconds following color change onset. When the room turned blue (CS-), no noxious VR stimulus occurred. In addition to intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) activity, we recorded physiological and behavioral metrics of fear. RESULTS: We found that the same neural signature indicative of fear memory retrieval in rodents (increased amygdala theta oscillations) was significantly elevated for the fear compared to the neutral cue in freely behaving humans. CONCLUSIONS: These findings represent an important step in translating decades of research in rodents to humans and provide putative electrophysiological signatures of fear behavior that can be used as putative targets for treatment with closed loop brain stimulation therapies. We believe that this combined collection of simultaneous autonomic responses to subjective emotional (fear ratings and physiology), clinical symptoms (anxiety scales) and neural activity has immense transdiagnostic clinical potential for anxiety-related disorders and can inform neurosurgical approaches to treating severe psychopathology.

Stress exposure, perceived stress severity, and their effects on health

While stress is one of the central concepts in many contemporary theories of health, there is no universal definition of stress or stressors. Stress is usually understood as a subjective experience of tension, pressure, distress, fear or negative emotions that occurs as a result of a perceived threat to one’s mental or physical well-being and is accompanied by an evolved biological response that facilitates adaptive reaction. While stress is conceptualized as a taxing condition, it is not understood as uniformly harmful per se. In fact, stress response is often cited as an adaptive reaction. Moreover, not every incident of stress exposure results in a disease or has an undermining effect on health. Mere exposure to stress does not warrant the healthy organism’s falling ill. Yet stress has been shown to affect health both directly and indirectly, having impact on multiple chronic conditions. Stressors vary in their severity and their ability to leave their mark on health, and it is therefore important to develop reliable methods of measuring stress to better understand how stress affects health and instigates pathology. One of the difficulties of measuring the effects of stress is connected to the distinction between external stressors and their internal appraisal. More recently, stress researchers began to make a distinction between stress exposure (i.e., facing an objectively measurable stressor) and perceived stress severity (i.e., a subjective experience of stress resulting from individual’s facing a stressor). The latter has been shown to have a superior predictive ability in terms of negative health outcomes (both breadth and depth of observed effects) compared to the former. Measurement-wise, subjective stress also tends to yield more precise results, which makes it preferable as a stress-assessment tool. The present article is a literature review study that delves into this distinction and attempts to shed light onto its implications for measuring stress and its effects on health.

Machine Learning-Based Interpretable Modeling for Subjective Emotional Dynamics Sensing Using Facial EMG.

Understanding the association between subjective emotional experiences and physiological signals is of practical and theoretical significance. Previous psychophysiological studies have shown a linear relationship between dynamic emotional valence experiences and facial electromyography (EMG) activities. However, whether and how subjective emotional valence dynamics relate to facial EMG changes nonlinearly remains unknown. To investigate this issue, we re-analyzed the data of two previous studies that measured dynamic valence ratings and facial EMG of the corrugator supercilii and zygomatic major muscles from 50 participants who viewed emotional film clips. We employed multilinear regression analyses and two nonlinear machine learning (ML) models: random forest and long short-term memory. In cross-validation, these ML models outperformed linear regression in terms of the mean squared error and correlation coefficient. Interpretation of the random forest model using the SHapley Additive exPlanation tool revealed nonlinear and interactive associations between several EMG features and subjective valence dynamics. These findings suggest that nonlinear ML models can better fit the relationship between subjective emotional valence dynamics and facial EMG than conventional linear models and highlight a nonlinear and complex relationship. The findings encourage emotion sensing using facial EMG and offer insight into the subjective-physiological association.

Let's Hear it from Them: An Interview‐Based Exploration of Male Teachers' Perceptions of Gender Imbalance in the English Language Teaching Profession

AbstractThe presence of gender disparities, marked by a shortage of male teachers, has been a longstanding concern within the TESOL profession. Drawing on the concept of human flourishing, which advocates for equality and respect beyond gender and social standing, this research seeks to challenge gender stereotyping in foreign language teaching. Guided by personal observations and the stories of three male English language teachers, this article seeks to answer how male ESL/EFL teachers perceive gender playing out in their careers. By examining their perezhivaniya, or lived experiences, the study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the gender dynamics within TESOL, filling a critical gap in the existing literature and offering new insights into the subjective emotional experiences shaping the professional lives of male teachers in this field. The research demonstrates how the feminization of the ELT environment affects their sense of self‐worth and fulfillment and ultimately their commitment to stay in the profession.

Work, Self, and Society: A Socio-historical Study of Morita Therapy.

Morita therapy is known as a psychotherapy grounded in the culture of Japan, particularly its Buddhist culture. Its popularity in Japan and other East Asian countries is cited as an example of the relevance and importance of culture and religion in psychotherapy. To complement such interpretations, this study adopts a socio-historical approach to examine the role and significance of work in Morita's theory and practice within the broader work environment and culture of the 1920s and 1930s in Japan. Morita conceptualized shinkeishitsu as a personality disease and a social illness caused by an alienating work environment. He proposed a remedy that emphasized the subjective emotional experience of work. To his primarily middle-class clients and readers, Morita's reconciliation between the self and society and that between autonomy and compliance was persuasive and useful, providing a philosophy whereby they could integrate into the work environment without loss of self-worth. The socio-historical character of Morita therapy is vital to understanding its power and appeal during Morita's time. Moreover, it sheds light on the complex interrelationships between work, mental health, and society.

The role of the peripheral and central adrenergic system in the construction of the subjective emotional experience of panic

RationaleAlthough the study of emotions can look back to over 100 years of research, it is unclear which information the brain uses to construct the subjective experience of an emotion.ObjectiveIn the current study, we assess the role of the peripheral and central adrenergic system in this respect.MethodsHealthy volunteers underwent a double inhalation of 35% CO2, which is a well-validated procedure to induce an intense emotion, namely panic. In a randomized, cross-over design, 34 participants received either a β1-blocker acting selectively in the peripheral nervous system (atenolol), a β1-blocker acting in the peripheral and central nervous system (metoprolol), or a placebo before the CO2 inhalation.ResultsHeart rate and systolic blood pressure were reduced in both β-blocker conditions compared to placebo, showing effective inhibition of the adrenergic tone. Nevertheless, the subjective experience of the induced panic was the same in all conditions, as measured by self-reported fear, discomfort, and panic symptom ratings.ConclusionsThese results indicate that information from the peripheral and central adrenergic system does not play a major role in the construction of the subjective emotion.

Secondary School Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Online Learning Tools: Teachers’ Behaviour in Distance Education

Secondary school teachers’ attitudes towards online learning tools have been modified by systemic measures adopted in the school network as a result of COVID-19. This unexpected crisis situation forced schools to quickly implement digital infrastructure and look for optimal methods of online education. The aim of this study is to investigate on which factors (gender, age and subject area taught) the use of online tools for teaching activities depends. The aim is also to explore the subjective emotional experience of teachers when using online tools and the reasons of their perceived stress in distance education in the Covid era. The factors influencing the use of online tools for teaching, teachers’ subjective emotional experiences of using online tools, and the reasons for teachers’ perceived burden in distance education in the COVID era are analyzed using Welch’s ANOVA test and Games-Howell’s Post-Hoc test. The correlation values focused on teachers’ perceived feelings using online teaching tools are calculated by Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results are directed towards the level of teachers’ emotional experience in the context of using online tools for the respective activity. Satisfaction and well-being are experienced by teachers when explaining, activating students, assigning written work, and providing information resources. The study identified a major problem in education, which is the use of online tools for oral examinations. Another problem is the integration of homework into online education. The study has practical impact on the integration of teachers’ digital competences. A holistic approach should be developed in teacher training, seeking to fully integrate digital competences, and social and health aspects should also be taken into account.

Эмоция и аффект в мировой политике

In the world (but not yet in Russia specifically) there is already an extensive and rapidly growing amount of literature on the role and place of emotions both in international relations (IR) and in the foreign policy of states. This gives grounds to talk about the “emotional turn” within the framework of IR as a research discipline. But it is also well known that emotions are studied not only by IR, but in psychology, in various areas of neuroscience and in sociology as well. This article deals with some ontological and epistemological issues, arising from the results of multidirectional efforts of many academics to conceptualize the international political role of emotions on the basis of the leading international relations theories. The immediate goal is the exploration in the chosen subject area of the methodological problem of the integration of social science knowledge with achievements from the field of natural sciences. It is proposed to pay particularly close attention in this sense to the paradigm of affective neuroscience. The phenomenon of emotion, in principle, does not fit well with categories, which until now the IR has been focused on. Methodological imperatives of objective research push for the exclusion of subjective emotional experience from the scope of consideration. Constructivists, in their turn, treat emotion as a cognitive belief rather than as a bodily state. But in the article, the emotion is represented as a phenomenon which is both mental and physical. This is a monist view, going back to Spinoza. The research leads to the conclusion that, although social constructivism has good potential for studying the emotions in IR, when intentionally ignoring the biological nature of emotions, social constructivists can weaken their own position in comparison with those academic opponents, who are committed to instrumental rationalism in their approach. Constructivists thus limit with no good reason their own agenda when studying emotions and hinder the development of a transdisciplinary approach to the study of emotions in IR in particular.

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.

EEG decoding for musical emotion with functional connectivity features

Emotion refers to the subjective emotional experience that humans generate in specific situations, typically accompanied by physiological and psychological changes. In the field of emotions, multi-channel EEG emotional features can better reflect the collaborative mechanisms across multiple brain regions. Therefore, we propose a novel feature called asPLV (averaged sub-frequency phase locking value) based on the Morlet transform method to construct functional network edges. The proposed feature encompasses a comprehensive analysis of phase synchronization across sub-frequency bands spanning a wide range of frequencies and has the potential to reduce fluctuations arising from reliance on a single frequency band. We designed a music-evoked emotion experiment aimed at inducing corresponding emotions in participants while simultaneously recording their electroencephalogram (EEG) signals and extracted our proposed asPLV feature for classification. The results show that the proposed feature displays superior classification performance and generalization compared to other state-of-the-art methods. The proposed method is not only effective in successfully distinguishing between different emotions but also introduces a novel brain network metric to elucidate the collaboration and information exchange among emotion-related brain regions. Moreover, the asPLV feature could provide new insights for the development of an emotional brain-computer interface (BCI).

Collective Emotion: A Framework for Experimental Research

Research on collective emotion spans social sciences, psychology and philosophy. There are detailed case studies and diverse theories of collective emotion. However, experimental evidence regarding the universal characteristics, antecedents and consequences of collective emotion remains sparse. Moreover, current research mainly relies on emotion self-reports, accounting for the subjective experience of collective emotion and ignoring their cognitive and physiological bases. In response to these challenges, we argue for experimental research on collective emotion. We start with an overview of theoretical frameworks to identify a set of three characteristics of collective emotion. Based on research in cognitive and affective sciences, we then examine the corresponding candidate mechanisms. Finally, we highlight outstanding questions, review experimental evidence, and suggest ideas for future experimental research.

38 Assessing Memory for Emotions Separately from Emotion Recognition

Objective:Accurate processing of facial displays of emotion is critical for effective communication. A robust literature has documented impairment in the ability to recognize facial affect in people with traumatic brain injury (TBI), but research is scarce about memory for facial affect. Disruptions in recognizing and remembering the emotions of others can undermine relationship quality and may result in psychosocial dysfunction. Importantly, the extant literature indicates that facial affect recognition dissociates from other cognitive abilities such that it is likely a distinct neuronal process. Thus, explicit measurement of affect recognition and memory for emotions may be critical for implementing and refining rehabilitation interventions. The present study examined the relationship between recognition and memory for emotions using a novel computerized task and explored its associations with other cognitive abilities.Participants and Methods:Participants were adults who were neurologically healthy (n = 31) or had a history of moderate to severe TBI (n = 26). The battery included the novel Assessment of Facial Affect Recognition and Memory (AFARM), Cambridge Face Memory Test (face memory without emotion), Wechsler Test of Adult Reading, Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, Judgment of Line Orientation, Oral Symbol Digit Modalities, Digit Span, FAS, Animal Fluency, and the Affect Intensity Measure (experienced emotion). Spearman correlations examined the relationship of AFARM performance with the test battery. Logistic regression models examined whether immediate-delay (ID-EM) and long-delay face emotion-memory (LD-EM) accounted for unique variance in group membership beyond recognition accuracy of facial affect and memory for faces.Results:AFARM demonstrated relationships with neuropsychological and mood variables in the expected directions across and within groups, with the strongest associations observed for memory for verbal information (rs = .51 to .58) and processing speed (rs = .48 to .57). Consistent with traditional list-learning tests, ID- and LD-EM were highly correlated (r = .85). Experienced affect intensity was inversely associated with ID-EM (r = -.29) and LD-EM (r = -.38) but not with recognition accuracy (r = -.10). Logistic regression examining ID-EM was significant, χ2(3) = 26.05, p < .001, Nagelkerke R2 = .49. ID-EM accounted for unique variance in group status (p = .006; OR = 0.65) after accounting for recognition accuracy and face memory. Similarly, the model examining LD-EM was significant χ2(3) = 27.70, p < .001, Nagelkerke R2 = .43; LD-EM was significant after accounting for other variables (p = .017; OR = 0.69).Conclusions:The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that memory for emotions represents a unique component of social cognition that is separate from recognition. Accuracy in identifying emotions, face recognition memory, and memory for emotions are strongly related but not wholly redundant processes. Consistent with prior literature, subjective experience of emotion had substantial effects on objective performance tasks, indicating that an individual's intense experience of their own emotions can disrupt sensitivity to the emotions of others. Future research should assess the extent to which memory for emotions relates to psychosocial outcomes such as the quality and quantity of interpersonal relationships.

The representation of emotional experience from imagined scenarios.

One of the key unresolved issues in affective science is understanding how the subjective experience of emotion is structured. Semantic space theory has shed new light on this debate by applying computational methods to high-dimensional data sets containing self-report ratings of emotional responses to visual and auditory stimuli. We extend this approach here to the emotional experience induced by imagined scenarios. Participants chose at least one emotion category label among 34 options or provided ratings on 14 affective dimensions while imagining two-sentence hypothetical scenarios. A total of 883 scenarios were rated by at least 11 different raters on categorical or dimensional qualities, with a total of 796 participants contributing to the final normed stimulus set. Principal component analysis reduced the categorical data to 24 distinct varieties of reported experience, while cluster visualization indicated a blended, rather than discrete, distribution of the corresponding emotion space. Canonical correlation analysis between the categorical and dimensional data further indicated that category endorsement accounted for more variance in dimensional ratings than vice versa, with 10 canonical variates unifying change in category loadings with affective dimensions such as valence, arousal, safety, and commitment. These findings indicate that self-reported emotional responses to imaginative experiences exhibit a clustered structure, although clusters are separated by fuzzy boundaries, and variable dimensional properties associate with smooth gradients of change in categorical judgments. The resultant structure supports the tenets of semantic space theory and demonstrates some consistency with prior work using different emotional stimuli. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Subacute alpha frequency (10Hz) subthalamic stimulation for emotional processing in Parkinson's disease

BackgroundPsychiatric comorbidities are common in Parkinson's disease (PD) and may change with high-frequency stimulation targeting the subthalamic nucleus. Numerous accounts indicate subthalamic alpha-frequency oscillation is implicated in emotional processing. While intermittent alpha-frequency (10Hz) stimulation induces positive emotional effects, with more ventromedial contacts inducing larger effects, little is known about the subacute effect of ventral 10Hz subthalamic stimulation on emotional processing. Objective/HypothesisTo evaluate the subacute effect of 10Hz stimulation at bilateral ventral subthalamic nucleus on emotional processing in PD patients using an affective task, compared to that of clinical-frequency stimulation and off-stimulation. MethodsTwenty PD patients with bilateral subthalamic deep brain stimulation for more than six months were tested with the affective task under three stimulation conditions (10Hz, 130Hz, and off-stimulation) in a double-blinded randomized design. ResultsWhile 130Hz stimulation reduced arousal ratings in all patients, 10Hz stimulation increased arousal selectively in patients with higher depression scores. Furthermore, 10Hz stimulation induced a positive shift in valence rating to negative emotional stimuli in patients with lower apathy scores, and 130Hz stimulation led to more positive valence to emotional stimuli in the patients with higher apathy scores. Notably, we found correlational relationships between stimulation site and affective rating: arousal ratings increase with stimulation from anterior to posterior site, and positive valence ratings increase with stimulation from dorsal to ventral site of the ventral subthalamic nucleus. ConclusionsOur findings highlight the distinctive role of 10Hz stimulation on subjective emotional experience and unveil the spatial organization of the stimulation effect.

Subjective experience, self-efficacy, and motivation of professional football referees during the COVID-19 pandemic

The present multi-study article investigates the subjective experience of professional football (a.k.a. soccer) referees and players during the COVID-19 pandemic and the so-called ghost games (i.e., games without supporters). Referees from the Austrian Football Association completed questionnaires inquiring about self-efficacy, motivation, and general personal observations and perceptions (e.g., arousal or confidence). In addition, two players and one referee in the Austrian Football Bundesliga were interviewed retrospectively regarding their subjective experience during ghost games and the effects of emotions on behavior and performance using semi-structured, video-taped interviews. Results of the referee survey indicate that the most profound differences between regular games and ghost games lie in the domain of intrinsic motivation and multiple aspects of subjective experience. Specifically, the experience in ghost games compared with regular games was reported by referees as being significantly less motivating, less excited/tense, less emotional, less focused, and overall, more negative, despite being easier to referee and the players behaving more positively. Qualitative analyses of the video-taped interview footage indicated (i) substantial inter-individual variability regarding the extent of the effect of the empty stadiums on the subjective experience of emotions, (ii) consequently, different strategies to regulate emotions and arousal from suboptimal to optimal levels, both before and during competition, and (iii) interactions between reported emotions, arousal, motivation, self-confidence, behavior and performance on the pitch. In addition, non-verbal expressions of emotion were captured using fully automated AI-software that coded facial movements during interviews. The results of this exploratory facial expression analysis revealed varying degrees of arousal and valence in relation to the content of the statements during the interviews, demonstrating the convergent validity of our findings. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on the effects of football games without fans during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide insights into the subjective experience of professional football referees. Concerning referees and players alike, emotions are investigated as potential processes related to home-field advantage and performance in professional football by means of a multi-methods approach. Further, the combination of qualitative and quantitative measures—as well as verbal and non-verbal communication channels—can deepen our understanding of the emotional influence of (missing) spectators on the subjective experience and the behavior of sports professionals is discussed.

251. The Role of the Peripheral and Central Adrenergic System in the Construction of the Subjective Emotional Experience of Panic

251. The Role of the Peripheral and Central Adrenergic System in the Construction of the Subjective Emotional Experience of Panic