Individual differences in music reward sensitivity influence the perception of emotions represented by music

Although music is one of the most important sources of pleasure for many people, there are considerable individual differences in music reward sensitivity. Behavioral and neurobiological characterizations of music reward variability have been topics of increasing scientific interest over the last two decades. However, it is not clear how differences in music reward sensitivity might influence the perception of emotions represented by music and, specifically, how music reward sensitivity could influence subjective music evaluation when the affective valence of music is considered. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between music reward sensitivity and the perception of emotions in music, taking into account the emotional category of stimuli (pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant music clips). Music reward and emotion perception were also explored as a function of gender, musicianship, and music discrimination skills. We used the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire and the previously validated Film Music Stimulus Set (FMSS); participants rated FMSS excerpts for affective dimensions (valence, energy, and tension arousal) and discrete emotions (happiness, anger, fear, tenderness, and sadness). Our results showed that music reward was the main factor influencing FMSS evaluation, particularly for excerpts associated with positive affect. Gender had an important influence on evaluations linked to the negative pole of emotions, and music discrimination skills seemed to be associated with cognitive aspects of music analysis, rather than with the emotional architecture of pleasant music excerpts. Our findings highlight the need to consider music reward sensitivity and gender in studies of music and emotion, and open the possibility of using the FMSS in studies exploring the neurobiological and psychosocial bases of music emotion.

Research on Public Environmental Perception of Emotion, Taking Haze as an Example

Ecological and environmental problems have become increasingly prominent in recent years. Environmental problems represented by haze have become a topic that affects the harmonious ecology of human beings. The trend of this topic is on the rise. People’s perception of the environment after the impact of haze has also changed. A real-time grasp of the dynamic public environment perception of emotions is often an important basis for environmental management departments to effectively solve environmental problems through public opinion. This article focuses on the problem of the public perception of emotional changes, which is caused by fog and hazy weather, proposes an environmental emotion perception model, using Weibo comment data about fog and haze as environmental perception data, and analyzes the impact of fog and haze on the public in four seasonal time dimensions. The post-environment perception of emotion changes: the results show that in spring, the public’s environmental perception of emotions is mainly negative emotions at the beginning of the season; in summer, positive emotions become dominant emotions; in autumn, the public’s environmental perception of emotions is dominated by negative emotions that increase substantially; and in winter, the dominant environmental perception of emotions of the public is still negative. This theory provides support for research on social emotions and public opinion behavior.

Awareness in the void: a micro-phenomenological exploration of conscious dreamless sleep

This paper presents a pilot study that explores instances of objectless awareness during sleep: conscious experiences had during sleep that prima facie lack an object of awareness. This state of objectless awareness during sleep has been widely described by Indian contemplative traditions and has been characterised as a state of consciousness-as-such; while in it, there is nothing to be aware of, one is merely conscious (cf. Evans-Wentz, 1960; Fremantle, 2001; Ponlop, 2006). While this phenomenon has received different names in the literature, such as ‘witnessing-sleep’ and ‘clear light sleep’ among others, the specific phenomenological profile of this state has not yet been rigorously studied. This paper aims at presenting a preliminary investigation of objectless consciousness during sleep using a novel tool in qualitative research that can guide future research. Five participants experiencing objectless consciousness during sleep were interviewed following the Micro-phenomenological Interview technique (MPI; Petitmengin, 2005, 2006). All participants reported an experience they had during sleep in which there was no scenery and no dream. This period labelled as ‘No Scenery/Void’ was either preceded by the dissolution of a lucid dream or by other forms of conscious mentation. The analysis of the results advances four experiential dimensions during this state of void, namely (1) Perception of absence, (2) Self-perception, (3) Perception of emotions, and (4) Perception of awareness. While the results are primarily explorative, they refer to themes found in the literature to describe objectless sleep and point at potential avenues of research. The results from this study are taken as indications to guide future operationalisations of this phenomenon.

Teachers’ Perceptions Analysis on Students’ Emotions in Virtual Classes during COVID19 Pandemic: A Lexical Availability Approach

Virtual education has grown exponentially in the past year due to the global COVID19 pandemic. In this context, the exploration of teachers’ perceptions of their students’ emotions when using ICTs has become more relevant. The aim of this study was two-fold, on the one hand, to analyze how teachers perceived their students’ emotions and, on the other hand, to analyze the emotions teachers wanted to modulate in their students when using ICTs. To this end, an interpretative and comparative study was implemented using the Lexical Availability technique. The sample was formed by 178 Chilean teachers who took a lexical availability test. The analysis included general vocabulary through network graphs and a comparison across gender, academic background, school type and knowledge area. The results made it possible to identify the latent mental lexicon of teachers, revealing significant differences in the perception of emotions, according to gender and ICTs use and according to gender and knowledge area. The study further projects the potential of lexical availability to determine the emotions required by Affective Informatics in the adaptability of educational systems and to make adjustments to the instructional design.

Interpreting Emotions From Women With Covered Faces: A Comparison Between a Middle Eastern and Western-European Sample

While new regulations obligate or recommend people to wear medical masks at public places to prevent further spread of the Covid-19 virus, there are still open questions as to what face coverage does to social emotional communication. Previous research on the effects of wearing veils or face-covering niqabs showed that covering of the mouth led to the attribution of negative emotions and to the perception of less intense positive emotions. The current study compares a sample from the Netherlands with a sample from the United Arab Emirates on their perception of emotions from faces covered by a niqab, censoring black bars, or uncovered faces. The results show that covering the mouth area leads to greater anxiety in participants in both countries. Furthermore, although participants did not report greater decoding difficulties for faces that were covered as compared to fully visible, results show that face coverage did influence emotion perception. Specifically, happiness and anger were perceived as being less intense. Further, face coverage by a niqab, as compared to black bars, yielded lower emotional intensity ratings. We conclude that face coverage in particular can modulate the perception of emotions, but that affective contextual cues may play a role as well.

Universality and Cultural Specificity in the Emotion Perception from Touch

Can people communicate distinct emotions by touch? Previous studies in Western cultures have indicated that certain emotions could be perceived above the chance level when an encoder conveys emotions by touching a decoder's arm. However, the perception of emotions from touch has not been investigated in Japan, where it is uncommon to use touch as a method of daily communication. Therefore, we conducted an experiment with Japanese participants, which was nearly identical to previous studies with non-Japanese people. Results indicated that anger, love, and gratitude were categorized above chance, and fear, disgust, surprise, envy, and sympathy could also be accurately recognized above chance at a less detailed level such as pleasant or unpleasant, and aroused or non-aroused. These findings suggest universality and differences between Japanese and Westerners regarding the perception of emotions by touch. Note: The original preprint had been uploaded on 17-10-2020 (https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/pg8fy). This manuscript is the same as the original preprint.

Touch Communicates Positive Emotions and Voice Negative Emotions

Previous research revealed that nonverbal touch can communicate several emotions. Here, we compared the perception of emotions from touch with that from voice to examine whether the superiority differs between modalities. In our experiment, the encoder expressed 12 emotions including complex emotions by touching the decoder’s arm or uttering one syllable, and the decoder judged the expressed emotion. The results showed that the accuracy for touch and voice did not differ. Interestingly, positive emotions such as love and gratitude were perceived more correctly from touch, while negative emotions such as sadness and disgust were perceived correctly from voice. These results suggest that different modalities have different superiorities in emotion perception.

Does TB stigma affect emotion recognition? A study with a Portuguese sample

TB stigma constitutes a major barrier to disease control and social distress. This study aims to understand better the inherent social processes on the perception of emotions. Thus far, the specific role of TB stigma in this respect was not tested. We hypothesize that individuals in TB treatment (vs. a control non-clinical group) would identify more negative emotions in the faces of others, specifically rejecting emotions (e.g., disgust) when preoccupied with TB stigma. Two groups of participants completed a questionnaire with 23 faces, identified the emotions portrayed in the pictures, and reported their level of Stigma Consciousness, Interpersonal-Rejection Related to Stigma, and Rejection Sensitivity. Results show that the two groups significantly differ in their perceptions of negative emotions: participants in treatment identify less disgust and more sadness, fear, and anger versus the control group. Findings are discussed concerning the literature on stigma and its consequences.

See how it feels to move: Relationships between movement characteristics and perception of emotions in dance

Music makes humans move in ways found to relate to, for instance, musical characteristics, personality, or emotional content of the music. In this study, we investigated associations between embodiments of musical emotions and the perception thereof. After collecting motion capture data of dancers moving to emotionally distinct musical stimuli, silent stick-figure animations were rated by a set of observers regarding perceived discrete emotions, while 10 movement features were computationally extracted from the motion capture data. Results indicate kinematic profiles—emotion-specific sets of movement characteristics—that furthermore conform with dimensional models of valence and arousal, suggesting that observers rated the emotions consistently according to distinct movement features prevalent in the animations. Outcomes show commonalities and differences to a previous study that linked these movement features to auditory perception of musical emotion, providing insights into how emotional expression of music-induced movement could be conveyed and understood through auditory and visual channels, respectively.