“You Feel Like You Kind of Walk Between the Two Worlds”: A Participatory Study Exploring How Technology Can Support Emotion Regulation for Autistic People

An increasing amount of technological solutions aiming to support emotion regulation are being developed for Autistic people. However, there remains a lack of understanding of user needs, and design factors which has led to poor usability and varied success. Furthermore, studies assessing the feasibility of emotion regulation technology via physiological signals for autistic people are increasingly showing promise, yet to date there has been no exploration of views from the autistic community on the benefits/challenges such technology may present in practice. Focus groups with autistic people and their allies were conducted to gain insight into experiences and expectations of technological supports aimed at supporting emotion regulation. Reflexive thematic analysis generated three themes: (1) communication challenges (2) views on emotion regulation technology (3) ‘how’ technology is implemented. Results provide meaningful insight into the socio-emotional communication challenges faced by autistic people, and explore the expectations of technology aimed at supporting emotion regulation.

Exploring historic changes in musical communication: Deconstructing emotional cues in preludes by Bach and Chopin

A growing body of research analyzing musical scores suggests mode’s relationship with other expressive cues has changed over time. However, to the best of our knowledge, the perceptual implications of these changes have not been formally assessed. Here, we explore how compositional choices of 17th- and 19th-century composers (J. S. Bach and F. Chopin, respectively) differentially affect emotional communication. This novel exploration builds on our team’s previous techniques using commonality analysis to decompose intercorrelated cues in unaltered excerpts of influential compositions. In doing so, we offer an important naturalistic complement to traditional experimental work—often involving tightly controlled stimuli constructed to avoid the intercorrelations inherent to naturalistic music. Our data indicate intriguing changes in cues’ effects between Bach and Chopin, consistent with score-based research suggesting mode’s “meaning” changed across historical eras. For example, mode’s unique effect accounts for the most variance in valence ratings of Chopin’s preludes, whereas its shared use with attack rate plays a more prominent role in Bach’s. We discuss the implications of these findings as part of our field’s ongoing effort to understand the complexity of musical communication—addressing issues only visible when moving beyond stimuli created for scientific, rather than artistic, goals.

Media features and communication control in the digitalized workplace: a study about regulating negative emotional communication

PurposeOne challenge facing the digitalized workplace is communication control, especially emotion regulation in which individuals try to manage their emotional experiences and/or expressions during organizational communication. Extant research largely focused on the facilitating role of a few media features (e.g. fewer symbol sets). This study seeks to provide a deeper understanding of media features that individuals, as receivers of negative emotions expressed by communication partners, could leverage to support regulating negative emotional communication in the workplace.Design/methodology/approachThis study used qualitative research methods to identify media features that support regulating negative emotional communication at work. Data were collected using interviews and was analyzed using directed content analysis in which media features discussed in media synchronicity theory (MST) were used as the initial coding schema but the researcher was open to media features that do not fit with MST.FindingsIn addition to media features (and capabilities) discussed in MST, this study identified five additional media features (i.e. message broadcasting, message blocking, receiving specification, recipient specification and compartmentalization) and two underlying media capabilities (i.e. transmission control capability and participant control capability) that may support regulating negative emotional communication. Two major mechanisms (i.e. reducing or eliminating emotion regulation workload, and providing prerequisites or removing obstacles for emotion regulation) via which media features support emotion regulation were also identified.Originality/valueThis paper provides a more comprehensive understanding regarding communication media features that may support emotion regulation in particular and communication control in general. Findings of this study contribute to several literatures and may also transfer to other similar contexts.

Improvising on Emotion Terms: Students’ Strategies, Emotional Communication, and Aesthetic Value

Studies in musical improvisation show that musicians and even children are able to communicate intended emotions to listeners at will. To understand emotional expressivity in music as an art form, communicative success needs to be related to improvisers’ thought processes and listeners’ aesthetic judgments. In the present study, we used retrospective verbal protocols to address college music students’ strategies in improvisations based on emotion terms. We also subjected their improvisations to expert ratings in terms of heard emotional content and aesthetic value. A qualitative analysis showed that improvisers used both generative strategies (expressible in intramusical terms) and imaginative, extramusical strategies when approaching the improvisation tasks. The clarity of emotional communication was found to be high overall, and linear mixed-effects models showed that it was supported by generative approaches. However, perceived aesthetic value was unrelated to such emotional clarity. Instead, aesthetic value was associated with emotional complexity, here defined as the heard presence of “nonintended” emotions. The results point toward a view according to which the expressive content of improvisation gets specified and personalized during the very act of improvisation itself. Arguably, musical expressivity in improvisation should not be equated with the error-free communication of previously intended emotional categories.

Experimental Study on Abstract Expression of Human-Robot Emotional Communication

With the continuous development of intelligent product interaction technology, the facial expression design of virtual images on the interactive interface of intelligent products has become an important research topic. Based on the current research on facial expression design of existing intelligent products, we symmetrically mapped the PAD (pleasure–arousal–dominance) emotion value to the image design, explored the characteristics of abstract expressions and the principles of expression design, and evaluated them experimentally. In this study, the experiment of PAD scores was conducted on the emotion expression design of abstract expressions, and the data results were analyzed to iterate the expression design. The experimental results show that PAD values can effectively guide designers in expression design. Meanwhile, the efficiency and recognition accuracy of human communication with abstract expression design can be improved by facial auxiliary elements and eyebrows.

The Impact of Daily Emotional Labor on Health and Well-Being

Emotional labor research largely focuses on client-facing occupations. However, employees across occupations engage in emotional labor when they perceive that specific types of emotional communication are required to align with organizational expectations. The current two-week daily survey study of 42 employees was conducted at a small website development company to examine relationships between employees’ emotional labor, physical health, and psychological well-being. Results indicated that daily emotional labor surface acting was significantly negatively related to daily psychological well-being and daily physical health. However, daily emotional labor deep acting was not significantly related to daily psychological well-being or daily physical health. After aggregating emotional labor across days, results revealed a significant positive relationship between emotional labor and burnout. This study enhances organizational awareness of the relationship between emotional communication expectations and employees’ psychological and physical health. Research-driven practices are detailed to ameliorate the negative side effects of emotional labor communication demands.

Cross-Cultural Differences and Psychometric Properties of the Japanese Actions and Feelings Questionnaire (J-AFQ)

Aims: We aimed to assess the psychometric properties of a Japanese version of the Actions and Feelings Questionnaire (J-AFQ), an 18-item self-report measure of non-verbal emotional communication, as well as to examine its transcultural properties.Methods: The J-AFQ was administered to 500 Japanese adults (age 20–49, 250 male), alongside the Japanese Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ-J) and Empathy Quotient (EQ-J). These were compared to a group of 597 British and Irish participants (age 16–18, 148 male). J-AFQ was assessed in terms of validity by confirmatory factor analysis and convergence with BAPQ-J and EQ-J using Pearson correlation. Internal consistency and differential item functioning (DIF) were assessed and compared between Japanese and UK/Irish participants.Results: Reversed worded items (RWIs) showed poor item-total correlations but excluding these left a 13-item version of the J-AFQ with good internal consistency and content validity. Consistent with the English version, J-AFQ scores correlated with EQ and lower BAPQ scores. However, comparing across cultures, J-AFQ scores were significantly lower in the Japanese sample, and there was evidence of important DIF by country in over half of the J-AFQ itemsConclusion: Cultural differences in attitudes to self-report, as well as increased acquiescence to RWI's also seen in previous studies, limit the value of the 18-item instrument in Japanese culture. However, the 13-item J-AFQ is a valid and reliable measure of motor empathy, which, alongside the English version, offers promise for research in motor cognition and non-verbal emotional communication across cultures.