Emotional Prosody Recognition Enhances and Progressively Complexifies From Childhood to Adolescence

Background: Emotional prosody is the result of the dynamic variation of acoustical non-verbal aspects of language that allow people to convey and recognize emotions. Understanding how this recognition develops during childhood to adolescence is the goal of the present paper. We also aim to test the maturation of the ability to perceive mixed emotions in voice. Methods: We tested 133 children and adolescents, aged between 6 and 17 years old, exposed to 4 kinds of emotional (anger, fear, happiness, and sadness) and neutral linguistic meaningless stimuli. Participants were asked to judge the type and degree of perceived emotion on continuous scales. Results: By means of a general linear mixed model analysis, as predicted, a significant interaction between age and emotion was found. The ability to recognize emotions significantly increased with age for all emotional and neutral vocalizations. Girls recognized anger better than boys, who instead confused fear with neutral prosody more than girls did. Across all ages, only marginally significant differences were found between anger, happiness, and neutral versus sadness, which was more difficult to recognize. Finally, as age increased, participants were significantly more likely to attribute mixed emotions to emotional prosody, showing the progressive complexification of the emotional content representation that young adults perceived in emotional prosody. Conclusions: The ability to identify basic emotions from linguistically meaningless stimuli develops from childhood to adolescence. Interestingly, this maturation was not only evidenced in the accuracy of emotion detection, but also in a complexification of emotion attribution in prosody.

Taking “Thanks” for Granted: A Cross-Cultural Exploration of Gratitude in the UK and Australia

Examinations of the influence of culture on how gratitude is experienced are sparse, as are studies that simultaneously explore developmental differences in understandings of gratitude. This paper presents three studies that examine whether perceptions and experiences of gratitude differ across children, adolescents and adults in two individualistic, WEIRD and Commonwealth cultures—Australia and the UK. Studies 1a ( N = 88, ages 17–39) and 1b ( N = 77, ages 17–25) provide initial insights into “features of gratitude” in Australia through two stages of a prototype analysis. These features are compared to a previous prototype study of gratitude in the UK, alongside a further comparison to the US. Study 2 employs vignettes to examine how perceptions of the benefactor, benefit and mixed emotions influence the degree of gratitude experienced across adolescents and adults in Australia ( N = 1937, ages 11–85), with a comparison to the UK ( N = 398, ages 12–65). In Study 3, factors examined in Study 2 are adapted into accessible story workbooks for younger children (Australia N=135, ages 9–11; UK N=62, ages 9–11). Results across these studies demonstrate similarities and differences in understandings and experiences of gratitude across cultures. While adults across Australia and the UK responded similarly to gratitude scenarios, cross-cultural differences are observed between children and adolescents in these two countries. Developmental differences are noted in relation to more sophisticated reasoning around gratitude, such as recognition of ulterior motives. These findings highlight the need for gratitude research and interventions to be cross-culturally, and developmentally, responsive.

The analysis of the perception of prospective music teachers on musical dictation through methaphors

The field of musical hearing education is among the most significant areas due to its importance in prospective music teachers’ learning experiences. This is because musical hearing has an effect the success on all other areas of musical education. It is important to determine the prospective music teachers’ evaluation on studies of dictation writing for its direct effect on many courses in their occupational training and musical development. There are studies working on different perceptions on different concepts of individuals by using metaphors in the context of educational sciences and in different levels of education. In literature review, it is found out that less research made, which are using metaphors as data collection tool in music education field than the other education fields. For that reason, in this research it is deem suitable to get benefit from using metaphors of prospective music teachers’ perceptions on musical dictation writing. The working group of this research consists of 93 students which are studying Dokuz Eylul University Buca Faculty of Education Music Education Department in the 2018-2019 educational year. The data of this research has been collected with a fill in the blanks form like “dictation writing is like ....…. Because …… ”. Data collected analyzed by using content analysis. In the content analysis stage, 11 data excluded. Finding results shows that 82 prospective music teachers have produced 70 metaphors on dictation writing. Prospective music teachers produced metaphors on dictation writing categorized in 9, which are (19,51%) giving happiness, (19,51%) needs attention, (13,41%) analysis, (9,76%) caused mixed emotions, (8,54%) concreting, (8,54%) difficulty, (8,54%) needs effort, (7,32%) developing, and (4,88%) troublesome. It is found out that prospective teachers used metaphors like puzzle / crossword / puzzle solving (f=12), playing strategy game on computer (f=4) and solving math problems (f=4). Abstract Müziksel işitme eğitimi, müzik öğretmeni adaylarının öğrenim yaşantılarında önem derecesine göre ilk sıralarda yer alabilecek bir alandır. Çünkü müziksel işitme, müzik eğitiminin diğer tüm alanlarında başarıyı etkileyebilecek bir yere sahiptir. Mesleki eğitimlerinde aldıkları birçok derse etki etmesi ve müziksel gelişimlerini doğrudan etkilemesi sebebiyle müzik öğretmeni adaylarının müziksel işitme becerilerinin geliştirilmesinde büyük yer tutan dikte yazma çalışmalarını nasıl değerlendirdiklerinin belirlenmesi önem arz etmektedir. Eğitim bilimleri disiplini çerçevesinde eğitimin çeşitli kademelerinde bireylerin çeşitli kavramlara yönelik algılarının metaforlar aracılığıyla incelendiği çalışmalara rastlanmaktadır. Gerçekleştirilen literatür taramasında müzik eğitimi alanında metaforların veri toplama aracı olarak kullanıldığı araştırmaların sayısının, eğitimin diğer alanlarına göre daha az olduğu görülmüştür. Bu sebeple bu araştırmada müzik öğretmeni adaylarının müziksel dikte yazmaya yönelik algılarının belirlenmesinde metaforlardan faydalanılması uygun görülmüştür. Bu araştırmanın çalışma grubunu 2018-2019 öğretim yılında Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Buca Eğitim Fakültesi Müzik Eğitimi Anabilim Dalı’nda öğrenim gören 93 öğrenci oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmanın verileri “dikte yazmak ....… gibidir. Çünkü …… ” şeklinde boşluklar bırakılmış bir form ile toplanmıştır. Toplanan verilerin çözümlenmesinde içerik analizinden faydalanılmıştır. Analiz aşamasında 11 veri kapsam dışında bırakılmıştır. Araştırma sonuçları 82 müzik öğretmeni adayının dikte yazmaya ilişkin toplam 70 metafor ürettiğini göstermektedir. Müzik öğretmeni adaylarının dikte yazmaya ilişkin ürettikleri metaforlar mutluluk veren (%19,51), dikkat gerektiren (%19,51), çözümleme (%13,41), karışık duygulara yol açan (%9,76), somutlaştırma (%8,54), zorluk (%8,54), emek ve çaba isteyen (%8,54), gelişim sağlayan (%7,32), sıkıntı veren (%4,88) olmak üzere toplam 9 kategoride toplanmıştır. Öğretmen adaylarının en sık bilmece/bulmaca/bulmaca çözmek (f=12), bilgisayarda strateji oyunu oynamak (f=4) ve matematik problemi çözmek (f=4) metaforlarını kullandıkları görülmektedir.

Losing Champions

This chapter discusses how 1626 was to be a dangerous year for those wedded to Elizabeth Stuart's cause. The first casualty was a minor Protestant polemicist and fervent supporter of hers named Thomas Scott. Then the Duke of Brunswick died at Wolfenbüttel; Brunwick's death damaged not only Elizabeth's cause, but also her well-being. Meanwhile, in November, Gabor agreed terms with the Holy Roman Emperor, signing the Peace of Pressburg in December. With Gabor making peace, Elizabeth had lost yet another champion. The chapter then looks at how Buckingham's invasion of the Isle of Rhé started the Franco-Stuart war of 1627–1629. Frederick V and Elizabeth were fully committed to two complementary struggles: regaining the Palatinate and keeping up appearances. Just when nothing seemed to be going right for Frederick and Elizabeth, the good news that the Swedish king's army had landed at Usedom in July of 1630 arrived. Gustavus Adolphus died on the battlefield on November 16, 1632, shortly after the taking of Frankenthal. His death was presumably received with mixed emotions by Elizabeth, as while she may have joined in the general mourning of a lost Protestant champion, his passing must also have seemed timely, not least because of the disrespect that he had accorded her husband and his stance on the Palatinate.

To Vaccinate or Not? Decision-Making in the Time of COVID-19 Vaccines

Decision-making has become an important component of the COVID-19 pandemic. A particular decision that we are currently presented with is whether to take up COVID-19 vaccines or not. Through the lens of autoethnography, I present my personal “vaccine decision-making” process as a social scientist who, despite having mixed emotions toward COVID-19 vaccines, made the decision to get vaccinated. Recognizing the subjective nature of my narrative, autoethnography is valuable to produce knowledge that is meaningful, evocative, and relatable to different audiences. This article thus offers valuable insights into decision-making related to COVID-19 vaccine uptake, shedding light on the importance of vaccine literacy, trust, and social responsibility in this process.

Information extraction using a mixed method analysis of social media data: A case study of the police shooting during the anti-Sterlite protests at Thoothukudi, India

During unexpected social events, information extracted from social media content posted by the people could play a crucial role in understanding the public opinion about the event. In this study, a mixed method procedure, which combines automated and human-based methods, is proposed to mine information from tweets to understand people's thoughts toward an unexpected turn of events. The proposed framework was applied on tweets posted regarding the police shooting to disperse protesters during the anti-Sterlite protests on May 22, 2018, at Thoothukudi in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The tweets were analyzed in two ways: (i) sentiment classification with automated computational methods and (ii) qualitatively examining the context of the expressed sentiments. In the case of anti-Sterlite protests, people expressed mixed emotions toward the protests for the closure of the Sterlite plant. A large negative sentiment toward the police shooting could be gleaned from the tweets. Analyzing tweets by the proposed method provides clear insights regarding the incident, which in turn will aid in planning an emergency response.

Individual differences in thinking style and dealing with contradiction: The mediating role of mixed emotions

The present research examined how individuals’ thinking style (holistic vs. analytic) is associated with the way they deal with contradictory information and whether experiencing mixed emotions can mediate this relationship. Participants first completed the thinking style measure and then were exposed to two contradictory pieces of information (Studies 1 and 2). In study 2, we also measured the experience of mixed emotions to test the mediating role of this variable. Across two studies, we found that individuals with a holistic thinking style were more able to reconcile contradictory information compared to individuals with an analytic thinking style. Study 2 showed that the relationship between thinking style and dealing with contradiction was mediated by the experience of mixed emotions. This research extends previous findings on confrontation of contradiction and mixed emotions by using an individual-differences rather than a cultural-differences approach, and establishes mixed emotions as a plausible mediating variable.

‘We have been in lockdown since he was born’: a mixed methods exploration of the experiences of families caring for children with intellectual disability during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK

ObjectivesThis study aimed to explore the experiences of parents caring for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) during the UK national lockdown in spring 2020, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.DesignParticipants were identified using opportunity sampling from the IMAGINE-ID national (UK) cohort and completed an online survey followed by a semistructured interview. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.SettingInterviews were conducted over the telephone in July 2020 as the first UK lockdown was ending.Participants23 mothers of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities aged 5–15 years were recruited.ResultsThemes reported by parents included: managing pre-existing challenges during a time of extreme change, having mixed emotions about the benefits and difficulties that arose during the lockdown and the need for appropriate, individualised support.ConclusionsOur findings confirm observations previously found in UK parents of children with IDD and provide new insights on the use of technology during the pandemic for schooling and healthcare, as well as the need for regular check-ins.