Emotions evoked by the sound of music: characterization, classification, and measurement

One reason for the universal appeal of music lies in the emotional rewards that music offers to its listeners. But what makes these rewards so special? The authors addressed this question by progressively characterizing music-induced emotions in 4 interrelated studies. Studies 1 and 2 (n=354) were conducted to compile a list of music-relevant emotion terms and to study the frequency of both felt and perceived emotions across 5 groups of listeners with distinct music preferences. Emotional responses varied greatly according to musical genre and type of response (felt vs. perceived). Study 3 (n=801)--a field study carried out during a music festival--examined the structure of music-induced emotions via confirmatory factor analysis of emotion ratings, resulting in a 9-factorial model of music-induced emotions. Study 4 (n=238) replicated this model and found that it accounted for music-elicited emotions better than the basic emotion and dimensional emotion models. A domain-specific device to measure musically induced emotions is introduced--the Geneva Emotional Music Scale.     

中学生的道德情绪内隐观研究

以974名14-18岁的中学生为被试,通过道德情绪的词汇评定和情境评定,考察中学生对典型道德情绪种类和道德情绪典型属性的认识。结果表明,中学生对典型道德情绪的认识涉及情境性、导向性、批评性、赞誉性等多种情绪类别,并在总体上更容易把正性情绪词汇认同为道德情绪。在判断与评价具体情境中的道德情绪过程中,中学生更倾向把无私和有私因素诱发的情绪显著地聚类区分,从而将无私诱因视为其认同道德情绪的典型标准,这种内隐观不受其学段、性别的影响和情绪效价效应的干扰。     

Knowing me,knowing you: emotion differentiation in oneself is associated with recognition of others’ emotions

ABSTRACT

Previous research has found that individuals vary greatly in emotion differentiation, that is, the extent to which they distinguish between different emotions when reporting on their own feelings. Building on previous work that has shown that emotion differentiation is associated with individual differences in intrapersonal functions, the current study asks whether emotion differentiation is also related to interpersonal skills. Specifically, we examined whether individuals who are high in emotion differentiation would be more accurate in recognising others’ emotional expressions. We report two studies in which we used an established paradigm tapping negative emotion differentiation and several emotion recognition tasks. In Study 1 (N?=?363), we found that individuals high in emotion differentiation were more accurate in recognising others’ emotional facial expressions. Study 2 (N?=?217), replicated this finding using emotion recognition tasks with varying amounts of emotional information. These findings suggest that the knowledge we use to understand our own emotional experience also helps us understand the emotions of others.     

Emotion regulation and the temporal dynamics of emotions: Effects of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression on emotional inertia

The tendency for emotions to be predictable over time, labelled emotional inertia, has been linked to low well-being and is thought to reflect impaired emotion regulation. However, almost no studies have examined how emotion regulation relates to emotional inertia. We examined the effects of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression on the inertia of behavioural, subjective and physiological measures of emotion. In Study 1 (N = 111), trait suppression was associated with higher inertia of negative behaviours. We replicated this finding experimentally in Study 2 (N = 186). Furthermore, in Study 2, instructed suppressors and reappraisers both showed higher inertia of positive behaviours, and reappraisers displayed higher inertia of heart rate. Neither suppression nor reappraisal were associated with the inertia of subjective feelings in either study. Thus, the effects of suppression and reappraisal on the temporal dynamics of emotions depend on the valence and emotional response component in question.     

人际情绪调节与内隐/外显积极情绪的关系:情绪调节困难的调节效应与表达抑制的中介效应

人际情绪调节是重要的社会性情绪调节方式,为阐明其与积极情绪的关系,采用人际情绪调节量表、内隐与外显积极情绪量表、表达抑制量表和情绪调节困难量表进行了调查。1159名被试的分析结果表明：（1）人际情绪调节显著正向预测内隐与外显积极情绪;（2）且情绪调节困难是人际情绪调节预测内隐积极情绪的调节变量;（3）表达抑制是人际情绪调节预测外显积极情绪的中介变量。这表明运用人际情绪调节可增加积极情绪,但是其作用效果与个体的情绪特质相关。     

What is an academic emotion? Insights from Filipino bilingual students’ emotion words associated with learning

We explored Filipino learners’ concept of academic emotions by studying the words they use to describe their emotional experiences associated with learning. Two main theoretical frames were used as reference in the analysis: Clore, Ortony, & Foss’ (1978) taxonomy of emotion words, and Pekrun’s (2006) dimensions of academic emotions. We asked Filipino learners to describe the positive and negative emotions that they associate with their learning experiences using an open ended questionnaire. The 676 students used 1337 words which were classified into root word categories; 38 categories which were mentioned by at least 1% of the participants were included in the analysis. The interpretive analysis suggested that Filipino learners’ concept of academic emotions includes appraisals of cognitive and even physical conditions, beyond the typical affective conditions assumed in theories of emotions and academic emotions. Moreover, Filipino learners’ concepts of academic emotions include a wider range of emotion concepts, and may require additional characteristic dimensions, compared to what is being studied in current academic emotions research.     

Perceptual and conceptual organization of facial emotions: Hemispheric differences

Patients with lesions to either the right or left hemisphere and control subjects were asked to judge the similarity of pairs of photographs of a person displaying different emotions, and of pairs of emotion words. The results were submitted to a multidimensional scaling analysis. Right-hemisphere-damaged subjects were found to be more impaired at perceiving facial emotions than were left-hemisphere-damaged subjects or controls, and this impairment was not confined to the perception of a subset of facial emotions nor to judging emotional valence (Pleasantness versus Unpleasantness). Rather, subtle impairments in perceiving a wide range of facial emotions were found, mostly concerning differentiation of the Positive-Negative and Attention-Rejection dimensions, and concerning the strategies the subjects used to make their judgments. The right-hemisphere-damaged subjects performed comparably to controls in their ratings of emotion words, suggesting that their ability to conceptualize emotional states was intact and that their impairment was strictly in the perception of emotion.     

The structure of emotion: An empirical comparison of six models

There are a number of conflicting approaches to the problem of the relationship between different emotions. One category of models focuses on the valence of emotional experience and typically reports evidence for dimensional approaches to emotion. A second category of models argues for the possibility of discrete basic emotions, but typically focuses on evidence from emotion systems other than conscious experience. In the present study, a list of emotion terms was drawn up that were derived conceptually from a set of basic emotions. A group of participants filled out a questionnaire that asked how much in general they experienced each of the emotions. A structural equation modelling approach was then used with the resultant dataset, an approach that permitted the comparison of six different models that ranged from the positive-negative affect models to models of discrete basic emotions. The analyses gave support for a set of five basic emotions but only when these were allowed to correlate with each other. Implications for theories of emotion are considered.     

情绪对延迟折扣的影响：现状、机制与展望

延迟折扣研究领域日益重视情绪的影响作用。本文基于三类研究取向对情绪与延迟折扣关系研究进行了回顾。情绪效价和唤醒度均影响延迟折扣,但是研究结果并不一致;具体情绪类型不同,其对延迟折扣影响也存在差异。除此之外,本文就情绪信息理论、情绪动机维度理论和评估倾向理论如何解释延迟折扣进行了详细阐述。未来的研究需要进一步深入考察情绪影响延迟折扣的认知神经机制,从而为延迟折扣的负性情绪效应的干预提供可靠的科学依据。     

Emotion development system by interacting with human EEG and natural scene understanding

In this paper, we propose a mental development system for understanding the emotional status of humans, and sharing emotions with human subjects. According to the relationship between emotional factors and characteristics of an image, we incorporate the fuzzy concept to extract emotional features using L^*C^*H^* color and orientation information. On the other hand, we also consider the EEG signals which are stimulated by natural stimuli to form the semantic emotional features as well. Emotionally relevant features are firstly clustered into two categories with degrees of belongingness to each cluster to initialize the membership functions of a neuro-fuzzy system. The IF-THEN rules of a neuro-fuzzy system to understand the positive and negative human emotions will be constructed by interacting with human. Then the system attempts to extend the number of understandable emotion. Through the time, the system sub-clusters the emotional features so that the number of membership function of the neuro-fuzzy network will increase to incorporate more complicated human expertise considering more human emotions. Using such a developmental process, the proposed system can develop a mental ability to understand more complex human emotions by mining the characteristics of emotional features and interacting with its environment.     

Toward an implicit measure of emotions: ratings of abstract images reveal distinct emotional states

Although implicit tests of positive and negative affect exist, implicit measures of distinct emotional states are scarce. Three experiments examined whether a novel implicit emotion-assessment task, the rating of emotion expressed in abstract images, would reveal distinct emotional states. In Experiment 1, participants exposed to a sadness-inducing story inferred more sadness, and less happiness, in abstract images. In Experiment 2, an anger-provoking interaction increased anger ratings. In Experiment 3, compared to neutral images, spider images increased fear ratings in spider-fearful participants but not in controls. In each experiment, the implicit task indicated elevated levels of the target emotion and did not indicate elevated levels of non-target negative emotions; the task thus differentiated among emotional states of the same valence. Correlations also supported the convergent and discriminant validity of the implicit task. Supporting the possibility that heuristic processes underlie the ratings, group differences were stronger among those who responded relatively quickly.     

中国传统情绪疗法及其应用

系统地探讨了中国传统情绪疗法：情志相胜疗法,相反情绪疗法,激情刺激疗法,与感觉刺激有关的情绪疗法,与别人有关的情绪疗法,顺情从欲疗法,抑情顺理疗法,移情易性疗法,情志导引疗法,七情合参疗法。这些中国传统心理疗法在现代仍有实用价值。     

情绪的相容性对创造性思维的影响

为探讨具身内隐情绪和外显情绪之间的相容性和不相容性对创造性思维的影响,实验采用情绪视频启动范式诱发被试的积极情绪或消极情绪,同时采用面部表情操纵技术诱导其具身积极情绪或具身消极情绪,然后要求被试完成创造性思维测验中的替代使用任务（AUT）与顿悟字谜测验。结果发现：在积极情绪下,情绪相容组的AUT流畅性得分显著高于情绪不相容组;而在消极情绪下,情绪相容组的AUT原创性得分与顿悟字谜得分显著高于情绪不相容组;灵活性在两种情绪条件下的差异均不显著。结果表明,面部表情和外显情绪的相容性有利于创造性思维的表现,积极情绪和消极情绪下的情绪相容性分别影响着创造性思维的不同成分。     

Conceptual and methodological issues in the judgment of facial expressions of emotion

In two studies, subjects judged a set of facial expressions of emotion by either providing labels of their own choice to describe the stimuli (free-choice condition), choosing a label from a list of emotion words, or choosing a story from a list of emotion stories (fixed-choice conditions). In the free-choice condition, levels of agreement between subjects on the predicted emotion categories for six basic emotions were significantly greater than chance levels, and comparable to those shown in fixed-choice studies. As predicted, there was little to no agreement on a verbal label for contempt. Agreement on contempt was greatly improved when subjects were allowed to identify the expression in terms of an antecedent event for that emotion rather than in terms of a single verbal label, a finding that could not be attributed to the methodological artifact of exclusion in a fixed-choice paradigm. These findings support two conclusions: (1) that the labels used in fixed-choice paradigms accurately reflect the verbal categories people use when free labeling facial expressions of emotion, and (2) that lexically ambiguous emotions, such as contempt, are understood in terms of their situational meanings.This research was supported in part by a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH 06091) to Paul Ekman.     

Situation selection is a particularly effective emotion regulation strategy for people who need help regulating their emotions

Situation selection involves choosing situations based on their likely emotional impact and may be less cognitively taxing or challenging to implement compared to other strategies for regulating emotion, which require people to regulate their emotions “in the moment”; we thus predicted that individuals who chronically experience intense emotions or who are not particularly competent at employing other emotion regulation strategies would be especially likely to benefit from situation selection. Consistent with this idea, we found that the use of situation selection interacted with individual differences in emotional reactivity and competence at emotion regulation to predict emotional outcomes in both a correlational (Study 1; N?=?301) and an experimental field study (Study 2; N?=?125). Taken together, the findings suggest that situation selection is an effective strategy for regulating emotions, especially for individuals who otherwise struggle to do so.     

Implicit theories of emotion: affective and social outcomes across a major life transition

The authors demonstrate that people differ systematically in their implicit theories of emotion: Some view emotions as fixed (entity theorists), whereas others view emotions as more malleable (incremental theorists). Using a longitudinal and multimethod design, the authors show that implicit theories of emotion, as distinct from intelligence, are linked to both emotional and social adjustment during the transition to college. Before entering college, individuals who held entity (vs. incremental) theories of emotion had lower emotion regulation self-efficacy and made less use of cognitive reappraisal (Part 1). Throughout their first academic term, entity theorists of emotion had less favorable emotion experiences and received decreasing social support from their new friends, as evidenced by weekly diaries (Part 2). By the end of freshman year, entity theorists of emotion had lower well-being, greater depressive symptoms, and lower social adjustment as indicated in both self- and peer-reports (Part 3). The emotional, but not the social, outcomes were partially mediated by individual differences in emotion regulation self-efficacy (Part 4). Together, these studies demonstrate that implicit theories of emotion can have important long-term implications for socioemotional functioning.     

How to bite your tongue without blowing your top: implicit evaluation of emotion regulation predicts affective responding to anger provocation

People frequently have to control their emotions to function in life. However, mounting evidence suggests that deliberate emotion regulation often is costly. This presents a dilemma: Is it better to let emotions go or to pay the price of exerting costly control? In two studies, the authors explore whether emotion regulatory processes associated with implicit positive evaluation of emotion regulation might provide the benefits of successful emotion regulation without the costs. In Study 1, the authors introduce a measure of implicit evaluation of emotion regulation (ER-IAT). Study 2 examined whether this measure is associated with actual emotional responses to an anger provocation. It was found that greater ER-IAT scores were associated with lesser anger experience, fewer negative thoughts, lessened self-reported effortful emotion regulation, and an adaptive pattern of cardiovascular responding. These findings suggest that implicit positive evaluation of emotion regulation is associated with successful, automatic, and physiologically adaptive down-regulation of anger.