Subjective Emotion Research Articles

SARA: A Mobile App to Engage Users in Health Data Collection.

Despite the recent progress in sensor technologies, many relevant health data can be only captured with manual input (e.g., food intake, stress appraisal, subjective emotion, substance use). A common problem of manual logging is that users often disengage within a short time because of high burden. In this work, we propose SARA, a novel app to engage users with ongoing tracking using timely rewards thereby reinforcing users for data input. SARA is developed for adolescents and emerging adults at risk for substance abuse. The rewards in SARA are designed to be developmentally and culturally appropriate to the target demographic and are theoretically grounded in the behavioral science literature. In this paper, we describe SARA and its rewards to increase data collection. We also briefly discuss future plans to evaluate SARA and develop just in time adaptive interventions for engagement and behavior change.

Unaltered emotional experience in Parkinson’s disease: Pupillometry and behavioral evidence

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Recognizing emotions in others is a pivotal part of socioemotional functioning and plays a central role in social interactions. It has been shown that individuals suffering from Parkinson’s disease (PD) are less accurate at identifying basic emotions such as fear, sadness, and happiness; however, previous studies have predominantly assessed emotion processing using unimodal stimuli (e.g., pictures) that do not reflect the complexity of real-world processing demands. Dynamic, naturalistic stimuli (e.g., movies) have been shown to elicit stronger subjective emotional experiences than unimodal stimuli and can facilitate emotion recognition.Method: In this experiment, pupil measurements of PD patients and matched healthy controls (HC) were recorded while they watched short film clips. Participants’ task was to identify the emotion elicited by each clip and rate the intensity of their emotional response. We explored (a) how PD affects subjective emotional experience in response to dynamic, ecologically valid film stimuli, and (b) whether there are PD-related changes in pupillary response, which may contribute to the differences in emotion processing reported in the literature.Results: Behavioral results showed that identification of the felt emotion as well as perceived intensity varies by emotion, but no significant group effect was found. Pupil measurements revealed differences in dilation depending on the emotion evoked by the film clips (happy, tender, sadness, fear, and neutral) for both groups.Conclusions: Our results suggest that differences in emotional response may be negligible when PD patients and healthy controls are presented with dynamic, ecologically valid emotional stimuli. Given the limited data available on pupil response in PD, this study provides new evidence to suggest that the PD-related deficits in emotion processing reported in the literature may not translate to real-world differences in physiological or subjective emotion processing in early-stage PD patients.

The Relationship between Subjective Sleep, Emotions, Social Support and Excessive Daytime Sleepiness in Female Undergraduate Students

The Relationship between Subjective Sleep, Emotions, Social Support and Excessive Daytime Sleepiness in Female Undergraduate Students

Cognitions and Emotions During Exposure to Erotica in Men With and Without Erectile Dysfunction

Erectile dysfunction is a health problem that affects the quality of life of many men. In addition to medical approaches, it has been assigned an increasingly important role to cognitive-affective factors involved in male sexual response. Recent studies have indicated that men with sexual dysfunction present significantly more negative thoughts during sexual activity, compared to sexually healthy individuals (Nobre and Pinto-Gouveia, 2003). Despite the accumulated knowledge in this field, there is a scarcity of studies comparing cognitive-emotional processes and sexual responses of men with and without erectile dysfunction in the laboratory. In this study, we sought to investigate how men without erectile dysfunction differ from, men with erectile dysfunction, with regard to the propensity for sexual inhibition and excitation as well as to the subjective and physiological sexual response, and the nature of sexual thoughts and emotions during exposure to sexual explicit material in the laboratory. Twenty-two men with psychogenic erectile dysfunction and 20 men without erectile dysfunction participated in the study. All participants were interviewed for sexual problems, and have given informed consent before being exposed to 2 films of sexual content while their genital response was being recorded. Moreover, after each sex film, participants reported on levels of subjective sexual arousal, sexual cognitions (STQ), and emotions (PANAS).

Real-Time Measurement of Tourists’ Objective and Subjective Emotions in Time and Space

The examination of tourists’ experiences is an essential subject in tourism scholarship. This study presents novel methods by which spatio-temporal data can be combined with physiological measures of emotion and semantic contextual information in order to obtain a comprehensive and integrative understanding of tourists’ experience in time and space. Four data collection techniques were combined and applied to a sample of 68 tourists in Jerusalem: high-resolution locational data, real-time surveying techniques using the experience sampling method, physiological measures of emotion (electrodermal activity), and traditional surveying techniques. We present methods for using these techniques in exploring data on the individual level, comparing pairs of individuals, and examining a sample, providing insight both on the individual’s personal experience and, more broadly, on the emotional characteristics of locations and tourist attractions in a city. Theoretical and methodological implications as well as the limitations of these techniques are discussed.

Étude sur les caractéristiques psychologiques des hommes auteurs de violences conjugales : quel type de fragilité psychique le passage à l’acte violent dissimule-t-il ?

IntroductionHistorically, intimate partner violence has been ignored and minimized, despite its seriousness and widespread prevalence in our culture. In the past three decades, many studies have addressed the question of the impact of intimate partner violence on physical or mental health for victims (spouses, ex-partners and children). But, what about authors? Currently, due to the multifactorial character of the phenomenon of domestic violence, it is still difficult to estimate the impact of the existing therapeutic programs which offer a support for the authors of this violence. The current study sought to examine the association between trait impulsivity, alexithymia and depression and the perpetration of physical and psychological intimate partner violence. We focused on particular psychological characteristics that would seem to have much potential as an aid to understand this phenomenon and its prevention and/or treatment. Patients and methodsFifty-three male offenders were surveyed using self-report questionnaires to assess emotional distress (BDI), impulsive behavior (BIS-11) and alexithymia (TAS-20), the inability to experience and express subjective emotions, prior to therapeutic program participation. ResultsFindings indicated that both alexithymia and depression were significantly associated with violence perpetration. Analyses showed that male intimate partner violence offender reported more depressive feelings and more difficulties to express his emotions than did general population. Furthermore, there are positive and significant correlations between alexithymia, impulsivity and depression. Therefore, if male offenders have difficulties to describe and identify their emotions, they will tend to have more depressive symptoms and also more impulsive behavior. However, we do not observe a difference between men who consult voluntarily therapeutic programs and those who have been forced by legal measure of constraint. ConclusionsThe present findings continue to suggest a strong link between alexithymia and domestic violence as showed by others studies. Additional researches are clearly needed and may lead not only to a better understanding of aggression but also to the development of better therapeutic interventions.

Temporal course of implicit emotion regulation during a Priming-Identify task: an ERP study

Implicit emotion regulation defined as goal-driven processes modulates emotion experiences and responses automatically without awareness. However, the temporal course of implicit emotion regulation is not clear. To address these issues, we adopted a new Priming-identify task (PI task) to manipulate implicit emotion regulation directly and observed the changes of early (N170), middle (early posterior negativity, EPN), and late event-related potentials (ERPs) components (late positivity potentials, LPP) under the different implicit emotion regulation conditions. The behavioral results indicated that the PI task manipulated subjective emotion experience effectively by priming emotion regulation goals. The ERP results found that implicit emotion regulation induced more negative N170 without altering the EPN and the LPP amplitudes, indicating that implicit emotion regulation occured automatically in the early perceptual stage not in the late selective attention stage of emotion processing. The correlation analysis also found the enlarged N170 was associated with decreased negative emotion subjective rating, suggesting that the N170 was probably an effective index of implicit emotion regulation. These observations imply that implicit emotion regulation probabbly occurs in the early stage of emotion processing automatically without consciousness.

An integration of cognitive appraisal theory and script theory in the luxury cruise sector: the bridging role of recollection and storytelling

ABSTRACTThis study aims to integrate cognitive appraisal theory (CAT) and script theory with the bridging role of recollective memory and storytelling. CAT includes travelers’ subjective judgments and emotions, while script theory includes recollection, storytelling, and consequent behavior. The relationships between the constructs included in these two theories as they relate to the luxury cruise trip experience were assessed. Based on a literature review, 14 theoretical hypotheses were derived and a structural equation model was developed. The proposed hypotheses were tested using data collected from 300 luxury cruise passengers. The findings confirmed the successful integration of the two theoretical aspects. The study provides guidance to cruise industry practitioners in developing managerial and marketing strategies. The results enrich the theoretical body of CAT and script theory.

Ecstatic things

This article addresses the orchestration of domestic lighting as an object of anthropological study. It takes Bedouin domestic architecture in southern Jordan as a starting point in an analysis of how light is used as means of safeguarding spaces as part of hospitality practices central to Bedouin culture. By arguing that things are “ecstatic” in the sense that they transcend their own tangibility, the article shows how objects, such as tinted windows, impose themselves on other objects to shape the particular visual presence of the world that informants opt for. Such a presence of the world is analyzed through the notion of “atmosphere” as a contemporaneity of subjective emotions, cultural ideals, and material phenomena. Thus, while boundaries between interior and exterior may be upheld by tangible material strategies, such as walls, these boundaries may also simultaneously be permeated by the ecstasy of material things, which aim to safeguard other aspects of life through less tangible strategies.

The Comparison Study of Different Operator Support Tools for Assembly Task in the Era of Global Production

As part of a global production strategy, many manufacturing companies locate their assembly plants in different countries around the world. While outsourcing final assembly closer to key markets has competitive benefits, these companies face new challenges with communication and dissemination of information. Concerning shop-floor operators specifically, these challenges affect the initial training and continuing improvement work instructions in particular. Emerging information and communication technology (ICT) have created new opportunities for supporting operators cognitively. In this paper, an immersive virtual reality (IVR) training environment for LEGO gearbox assembly was developed and tested. IVR technologies offer new opportunities where operators can access training and work instructions in an immersive environment, which could potentially improve and influence the operator performance and emotion. Both objective performance and subjective emotion were measured and the impacts were analyzed. The results were compared with four different operator support approaches and it was seen that IVR technology has the potential of improving operator and that further studies on integration, information, communication design and development of measurement methods are needed before the industry can benefit from the full potential of IVR technology.

Mother-child language style matching predicts children’s and mothers’ emotion reactivity

Co-regulation of behavior occurring within parent-child attachment relationships is thought to be the primary means through which children develop the capacity to regulate emotion, an ability that is protective across development. Existing research on parent-child co-regulation focuses predominantly on parent-infant dyads, and operationalizes co-regulation as the matching of facial expressions; however, matching can occur on other behaviors, including vocal tone, body movement, and language. Studies with young children find that greater matching is associated with children’s lower emotion reactivity, but with unknown impacts on parents. In this study we examine a recently-developed metric of behavioral matching, language style matching (LSM), a composite measure of the similarity of function word use in spoken or written language between two or more people. We test whether LSM between mothers and their school-aged children is associated with children’s and mothers’ physiological and subjective emotion reactivity. Children completed a standardized stressor task while their mothers observed; children’s and mother’s cortisol and cardiovascular reactivity were assessed, as were their subjective reports of emotion reactivity. Following the stressor, children and mothers completed independent interviews about the experience, later assessed for LSM. Higher mother-child LSM was associated with lower emotion reactivity (lower cortisol reactivity, lower reports of negative emotion) for children, and with higher maternal cardiovascular but not cortisol or subjective reactivity. Further, higher LSM was more strongly associated with lower child cortisol reactivity when mothers were more reactive themselves. We conclude that mother-child LSM, thought to reflect a history of co-regulated interaction, confers protective benefits for children, but heightened reactivity for mothers.

Pre-meal screen-time activities increase subjective emotions, but not food intake in young girls

PurposeTo determine the effect of pre-meal screen-time activities on subjective emotions, subjective appetite, and food intake (FI) in 9–14 year-old girls. MethodsIn this clinical study, 31 girls completed four 45-min treatment conditions of television viewing (TVV), video game playing (VGP), a challenging computer task (CT), and sitting without screen exposure (control) in a randomized order. Each treatment condition was followed immediately by an ad libitum pizza lunch, and FI was calculated from the weight of the consumed pizza. Subjective appetite was assessed at baseline, 15, 30, and 45 min during the treatment condition, and upon trial completion at 75 min. Subjective emotions were assessed at baseline and at 45 min. ResultsFI was not affected by screen type, but was positively correlated with body composition (fat mass [FM, kg], fat free mass [FFM, kg]) in all treatment conditions. Subjective appetite was not affected by screen type, but increased with time in all treatment conditions (p < 0.0001). Subjective emotions were affected by VGP only. Anger, excitement, frustration, and upset feelings were increased at 45 min following VGP. VGP led to increased frustration compared to control (p = 0.0003), CT (p = 0.007) and TVV (p = 0.0002). ConclusionExposure to TVV or CT before eating did not affect subjective emotions, subjective appetite, or FI, and no difference was found between screen activities and the control condition for average appetite or FI. Despite a change in subjective emotions during the VGP condition, there was no increase in subjective appetite or subsequent FI. These findings suggest that physiologic signals of satiation and satiety are not overridden by environmental stimuli of pre-meal screen-time exposure among young girls. (Clinical trial number NCT01750177).

Emotions in “Black and White” or Shades of Gray? How We Think About Emotion Shapes Our Perception and Neural Representation of Emotion

The demands of social life often require categorically judging whether someone’s continuously varying facial movements express “calm” or “fear,” or whether one’s fluctuating internal states mean one feels “good” or “bad.” In two studies, we asked whether this kind of categorical, “black and white,” thinking can shape the perception and neural representation of emotion. Using psychometric and neuroimaging methods, we found that (a) across participants, judging emotions using a categorical, “black and white” scale relative to judging emotions using a continuous, “shades of gray,” scale shifted subjective emotion perception thresholds; (b) these shifts corresponded with activity in brain regions previously associated with affective responding (i.e., the amygdala and ventral anterior insula); and (c) connectivity of these regions with the medial prefrontal cortex correlated with the magnitude of categorization-related shifts. These findings suggest that categorical thinking about emotions may actively shape the perception and neural representation of the emotions in question.

Reassessing wanting and liking in the study of mesolimbic influence on food intake.

Humans and animals such as rats and mice tend to overconsume calorie-dense foods, a phenomenon that likely contributes to obesity. One often-advanced explanation for why we preferentially consume sweet and fatty foods is that they are more "rewarding" than low-calorie foods. "Reward" has been subdivided into three interdependent psychological processes: hedonia (liking a food), reinforcement (formation of associations among stimuli, actions, and/or the food), and motivation (wanting the food). Research into these processes has focused on the mesolimbic system, which comprises both dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area and neurons in their major projection target, the nucleus accumbens. The mesolimbic system and closely connected structures are commonly referred to as the brain's "reward circuit." Implicit in this title is the assumption that "rewarding" experiences are generally the result of activity in this circuit. In this review, I argue that food intake and the preference for calorie-dense foods can be explained without reference to subjective emotions. Furthermore, the contribution of mesolimbic dopamine to food intake and preference may not be a general one of promoting or coordinating behaviors that result in the most reward or caloric intake but may instead be limited to the facilitation of a specific form of neural computation that results in conditioned approach behavior. Studies on the neural mechanisms of caloric intake regulation must address how sensory information about calorie intake affects not just the mesolimbic system but also many other forms of computation that govern other types of food-seeking and food-oriented behaviors.

Film clips and narrative text as subjective emotion elicitation techniques

ABSTRACTFilm clips and narrative text are useful techniques in eliciting emotion in a laboratory setting but have not been examined side-by-side using the same methodology. This study examined the self-identification of emotions elicited by film clip and narrative text stimuli to confirm that selected stimuli appropriately target the intended emotions. Seventy participants viewed 30 film clips, and 40 additional participants read 30 narrative texts. Participants identified the emotion experienced (happy, sad, angry, fearful, neutral—six stimuli each). Eighty-five percent of participants self-identified the target emotion for at least two stimuli for all emotion categories of film clips, except angry (only one) and for all categories of narrative text, except fearful (only one). The most effective angry text was correctly identified 74% of the time. Film clips were more effective in eliciting all target emotions in participants for eliciting the correct emotion (angry), intensity rating (happy, sad), or both (fearful).

문헌을 통해 본 조선후기 꽃놀이 명소의 경관 특성

본 연구에서는 조선후기 한양의 세시풍습과 명승을 기록한 "경도잡지(京都雜誌)"에 꽃놀이 명소로 등장하는 네 곳-필운대(弼雲臺), 북둔(北屯), 동대문 밖, 서대문의 천연정(天然亭) 등-을 대상으로 한다. 관련 문헌기록을 통해 각 명소들이 구체적으로 어떠한 경관요소들로 구성되고 방문객에게 어떻게 체험되었는지를 살펴보았다. 경관특성은 물경(物境), 정경(情境), 체험행위로 세분하여 분석하였다. 연구 결과, 대표적인 물경은 꽃이었으며, 꽃과 함께 술, 술잔, 술병 등의 음주와 관련된 물리적인 요소와 시 짓는 모임인 시회를 즐기는 장면도 등장하였다. 또한 이용 주체들이 물경에 의미를 부여한 정경의 도출을 통해 주체들이 공간에 성대해 갖는 의미를 해석하고자 하였다. 이를 통해 본 꽃놀이 명소의 의미로는 첫째, 풍류를 향유하기 위한 공간이라는 점이다. 문인들이 모여 꽃을 구경하고 술을 마시며 시회를 여는 등 각 공간들을 문화 창작의 거점으로 활용되었다. 둘째, 주체들이 각 장소에서 묘사한 정경에서 나타나듯, 방문객들은 공감각적인 완상을 통해 경관을 즐기는 것을 확인하였다. 이로써 꽃놀이 명소는 단지 꽃을 감상하는 것 이상의 감각적 체험의 장이었음을 확인하였다. 전통적인 꽃놀이 명소의 경관특성을 도출한 본 연구는 우리 선조들이 여가의 한 형태로 즐긴 꽃놀이와 그 공간이 갖는 의미를 추적하고 한국적인 꽃놀이 명소를 계획함에 있어 기초적인 자료가 될 것이라 판단한다. This study targets flower-viewing sites appearing in "Kyungdojapji" and talks about the seasonal customs and tourist attractions of the later Chosun; Pilundae, Bukdun, Outside of Dongdaemun, Cheonyunjeong and near Seodaemun etc. Through related poetry, paintings and maps, it looks into what scenic elements each attraction was made of and how the elements were felt by visitors. It sub-divided and analyzed scenic features into objective objects, subjective emotions and experienced behaviors. As a result, representative objective objects were flowers and there were also scenes where people enjoyed poem-writing meetings along with drinking-related physical elements such as liquor, liquor glasses, liquor bottles etc. Through drawing out scenes, where users gave meaning to objective objects, it tried to interpret what space meant to them, through which the meaning of flower-viewing attractions is first and foremost a space to enjoy artistic taste. Each space is used as the center of cultural creation such as literary people gathering, viewing flowers, drinking and having poetry-writing meetings. Second, as shown in scenes viewers depicted in each space, visitors were confirmed to enjoy scenes through multi-sensory appreciation. By this, flower-viewing attractions were confirmed to be not just flower-viewing but also venues of sensory experience. This study, which drew out the scenic features of traditional flower-viewing attractions, is expected to be basic material in tracing the flower-viewing enjoyed by our ancestors as a pastime and its spatial meaning and in planning Korea-unique flower-viewing attractions.

Triguna and Anger in Adolescent

One of the ways to study personality in Indian psychology through concept of Triguna. When three gunas are balanced the personality is balanced but if there is disturbance in any of the three gunas their personality gets disturbed. Triguna talks about three gunas Sattva (Purity knowledge,), Rajas (Anger, Action) Tamas (Laziness, apathy). The emotions we experience are closely related to the dominant guna in us. And therefore, another concept studied is that of anger. State anger is a subjective emotion accompanied by muscle tension and stimulation of the autonomous nervous system; its intensity may deviate from quite mild to quite strong. However, Trait anger is perceived in far more situations as displeasing and frustrating, and accordingly it is described as a tendency to have rather frequent state anger. The main purpose of the present research is to see the relationship between Sattva, Rajas, Tamas and State and Trait anger, gender difference on Sattva rajas Tamas and State and Trait anger are also studied. Sample size of 100 was taken. Incidental sampling techniques was used. It is an exploratory research. Results showed that there was a positive relationship between Triguna and Anger –Sattva guna and State and Trait anger, Rajas guna and State and Trait anger, Tamas guna and State an Trait anger. Gender on basis of guna and anger result reveals that there was no significance difference between boys and girls on the basis of guna and anger.

Individual differences in self-reported self-control predict successful emotion regulation.

Both self-control and emotion regulation enable individuals to adapt to external circumstances and social contexts, and both are assumed to rely on the overlapping neural resources. Here, we tested whether high self-reported self-control is related to successful emotion regulation on the behavioral and neural level. One hundred eight participants completed three self-control questionnaires and regulated their negative emotions during functional magnetic resonance imaging using reappraisal (distancing). Trait self-control correlated positively with successful emotion regulation both subjectively and neurally, as indicated by online ratings of negative emotions and functional connectivity strength between the amygdala and prefrontal areas, respectively. This stronger overall connectivity of the left amygdala was related to more successful subjective emotion regulation. Comparing amygdala activity over time showed that high self-controllers successfully maintained down-regulation of the left amygdala over time, while low self-controllers failed to down-regulate towards the end of the experiment. This indicates that high self-controllers are better at maintaining a motivated state supporting emotion regulation over time. Our results support assumptions concerning a close relation of self-control and emotion regulation as two domains of behavioral control. They further indicate that individual differences in functional connectivity between task-related brain areas directly relate to differences in trait self-control.

Psycho-physiological responses to plant variegation as measured through eye movement, self-reported emotion and cerebral activity

The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of different variegation of interior plant foliage on visual attention, subjective emotions and cerebral activity. Thirty Egyptian male subjects were presented with five different varieties of Hedera helix for 60 s in random orders. During this time, eye movements and cerebral activity were recorded, and subjective data were then gathered via a semantic differential scale. The results show clear evidence in support of the use of green-yellow and bright green-coloured plants in locations in which comfort and calmness are required, while red and dark green plants can be used to improve energy in places such as offices and children’s areas. In contrast, the green-white plants stimulated mostly negative emotions. These findings suggest that landscape and interior designers should pay more attention for choosing foliage colours during indoor decoration.

Effects of Neutral and Fearful Mood on Duration Estimation of Neutral and Fearful Face Stimuli

Previous research showed that fearful faces produce longer temporal estimates than neutral faces. This study probed whether fearful mood enhances this effect. In two experiments, participants viewed neutral and threatening film excerpts and subsequently evaluated the duration of neutral and fearful faces in a bisection task. In Experiment 1, where neutral mood was induced before fearful mood, skin conductance levels (SCLs) and subjective emotion ratings indicated successful mood induction. Compared to neutral mood, fearful mood lengthened subjective duration estimates irrespective of stimulus quality. Additionally, stimuli of fearful faces were temporally overestimated relative to neutral faces; but only in neutral, not in fearful mood. In Experiment 2, where fearful mood was induced before neutral mood, subjective emotion ratings, but not SCLs, indicated successful mood induction. Moreover, neither mood nor facial expressions influenced duration estimation. Taken together, the results show that fearful mood may accelerate an internal pacemaker but does not enhance temporal perception differences between fearful and neutral faces. Additionally, this study highlights the importance of dissociating stimulus, state, and trait emotionality for our understanding of emotional influences on temporal perception.