Empathy,Einfühlung,and aesthetic experience: the effect of emotion contagion on appreciation of representational and abstract art using fEMG and SCR

Since the advent of the concept of empathy in the scientific literature, it has been hypothesized, although not necessarily empirically verified, that empathic processes are essential to aesthetic experiences of visual art. We tested how the ability to “feel into” (“Einfühlung”) emotional content—a central aspect of art empathy theories—affects the bodily responses to and the subjective judgments of representational and abstract paintings. The ability to feel into was measured by a standardized pre-survey on “emotional contagion”—the ability to pick up and mirror, or in short to “feel into”, emotions, which often overlaps with higher general or interpersonal empathetic abilities. Participants evaluated the artworks on several aesthetic dimensions (liking, valence, moving, and interest), while their bodily reactions indicative of empathetic engagement (facial electromyography—EMG, and skin conductance responses—SCR) were recorded. High compared to low emotion contagion participants showed both more congruent and more intense bodily reactions (EMG and SCR) and aesthetic evaluations (higher being moved, valence, and interest) and also liked the art more. This was largely the case for both representational and abstract art, although stronger with the representational category. Our findings provide tentative evidence for recent arguments by art theorists for a close “empathic” mirroring of emotional content. We discuss this interpretation, as well as a potential tie between emotion contagion and a general increase in emotion intensity, both of which may impact, in tandem, the experience and evaluation of art.     

Perceived Risks and Benefits in a Text Message Study of Substance Abuse and Sexual Behavior

To inform ethical procedures for human subjects research using mobile health (mHealth), we examined perceived risks and benefits of study participation among emerging adults (N = 54) with drug use who completed text message assessments of substance use and sexual behaviors. Most participants reported comfort with participation and some reported perceived benefits, such as improved relationships. Perceived risks were infrequently reported, including negative emotions and legal or financial concerns. In conclusion, participants from a vulnerable population reported few perceived harms of participation in longitudinal mHealth assessments of sensitive behaviors. Researchers should continue characterizing participants’ perspectives on ethical aspects of mHealth research.     

Characteristics Associated With Individuals’ Caring,Just, and Brave Expressions of the Tendency to Be a Moral Rebel

Extending previous research on the characteristics associated with adolescents’ general tendency to be a moral rebel (Sonnentag & Barnett, 2016), the present study examined the roles of moral identity and (general and situation-specific) moral courage characteristics on 3 (i.e., caring, just, and brave) expressions of the tendency to stand up for one’s beliefs and values despite social pressure not to do so. Results revealed that general and situation-specific moral courage characteristics are important motivators of individuals’ caring, just, and brave expressions of the tendency to be a moral rebel, especially when they possess a relatively strong moral identity.     

“There's No Place to Hide”: Exploring the Stressors Encountered by Elite Cricket Captains

This study aimed to enhance understanding of stressors that elite sporting captains face in their role. The autobiographies of 12 international cricket captains were sampled. Stressors relating to the captaincy role were identified, and following thematic analysis, 7 general dimensions of stressors were recognized: multiple roles, team stressors, interactions with players, selection, interactions with other personnel, the media, and extreme situations. It appears that stressors are heightened due to a combination of playing and leadership responsibilities that captains experience. Findings are considered, including how they might be used to inform practitioners and coaches who work with captains.     

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Father Engagement Questionnaire

While there has been increasing interest in promoting father engagement in parenting interventions for child wellbeing, both research and practice endeavors have been hindered by a lack of a measure of father engagement practices. This paper reports the development and evaluation of a comprehensive, practitioner-report measure of father engagement practices–—the Father Engagement Questionnaire (FEQ). Practitioners (N?=?589; 84.5% females; mean age?=?38.56) involved in delivering parenting interventions in Australia completed the FEQ, along with background demographics and questions regarding their own and organization’s practice. A separate sample of 28 practitioners completed the FEQ twice, with a two-week interim, to assess test–retest stability of the measure. Exploratory factor analysis revealed five factors corresponding to the measure’s five intended content areas: Confidence in Working with Fathers, Competence in Using Engagement Strategies, Perceived Effectiveness of Engagement Strategies, Frequency of Strategy Use, and Organizational Practices for Father Engagement. Each of these scales demonstrated adequate internal consistency reliability and test–retest stability. As the five scales appear to be related but distinct, it is recommended that the FEQ is used as a multidimensional measure of father engagement. In terms of predictive validity, higher scores on the Confidence in Working with Fathers, Frequency of Strategy Use, and Organizational Practices for Father Engagement scales were associated with a higher likelihood of practitioner-reported father attendance. The results provide support for adequate psychometric properties of the FEQ as a research and clinical tool for assessing and monitoring father engagement practices.     

The effect of self‐identity alongside perceived importance within the theory of planned behaviour

Self‐identity often predicts behavioural intentions after standard theory of planned behaviour (TPB) components are accounted for. However, it has been claimed this is due to conceptual similarity between self‐identity and perceived importance of the behaviour. We examined this claim within the context of recycling food waste. Participants (N = 113) completed questionnaires assessing intentions, attitude, perceived behavioural control, perceived norms, perceived importance, self‐identity, and past behaviour. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that self‐identity and perceived importance were distinct constructs. Further, after accounting for TPB components and perceived importance, self‐identity explained a significant amount of additional variance in intentions. The present findings therefore do not support this particular argument against the predictive utility of self‐identity.     

The contribution of executive control to semantic cognition: Convergent evidence from semantic aphasia and executive dysfunction

Semantic cognition, as described by the controlled semantic cognition (CSC) framework (Rogers et al., 2015 , Neuropsychologia, 76, 220), involves two key components: activation of coherent, generalizable concepts within a heteromodal ‘hub’ in combination with modality‐specific features (spokes), and a constraining mechanism that manipulates and gates this knowledge to generate time‐ and task‐appropriate behaviour. Executive–semantic goal representations, largely supported by executive regions such as frontal and parietal cortex, are thought to allow the generation of non‐dominant aspects of knowledge when these are appropriate for the task or context. Semantic aphasia (SA) patients have executive–semantic deficits, and these are correlated with general executive impairment. If the CSC proposal is correct, patients with executive impairment should not only exhibit impaired semantic cognition, but should also show characteristics that align with those observed in SA. This possibility remains largely untested, as patients selected on the basis that they show executive impairment (i.e., with ‘dysexecutive syndrome’) have not been extensively tested on tasks tapping semantic control and have not been previously compared with SA cases. We explored conceptual processing in 12 patients showing symptoms consistent with dysexecutive syndrome (DYS) and 24 SA patients, using a range of multimodal semantic assessments which manipulated control demands. Patients with executive impairments, despite not being selected to show semantic impairments, nevertheless showed parallel patterns to SA cases. They showed strong effects of distractor strength, cues and miscues, and probe–target distance, plus minimal effects of word frequency on comprehension (unlike semantic dementia patients with degradation of conceptual knowledge). This supports a component process account of semantic cognition in which retrieval is shaped by control processes, and confirms that deficits in SA patients reflect difficulty controlling semantic retrieval.     

Tracking working memory maintenance with pupillometry

Phasic pupillary responses were used to track the active maintenance of information in working memory (WM). In seven experiments participants performed various change detection tasks while their pupils were continuously recorded. Across the experiments phasic pupillary responses increased as the number of maintained items increased up to around 4–5 items consistent with behavioral estimates of capacity. Combining data across experiments demonstrated that phasic pupillary responses were related to behavioral estimates of capacity. Furthermore, phasic pupillary responses demonstrated WM load-dependent relations only when active maintenance was required. When instructed to passively stare at the items or to drop items from WM, the pupil remained near baseline levels. These phasic pupillary responses also tracked the time course of maintenance demonstrating sustained responses early in the delay period, but declined thereafter. Finally, phasic pupillary responses tracked selection processes at encoding (filtering and pre-cues), but did not suggest evidence for item removal following retro-cues. These results are consistent with the notion that maintaining items in WM requires the allocation of effortful attention and further suggest that phasic pupillary responses can be used to track the active maintenance of items in WM.     

Testing the role of response repetition in spatial priming in visual search

In common “attention” tasks, which require stimulus-identity processing prior to the formation of a speeded key-press response, spatial priming effects depend on response repetition. Typically, the repetition of a stimulus location is advantageous when the prior response repeats, but disadvantageous or inconsequential when the prior response changes. This link between responding and space makes it difficult to draw inferences about attentional bias from two-choice key-press tasks. Instead, the findings are accounted for by episodic retrieval theories, which argue that the response associated with a prior stimulus location is retrieved when a later stimulus occupies its space. This retrieval operation is advantageous if the prior response is needed but not otherwise, which explains typical patterns. This perspective motivated us to evaluate whether spatial priming effects in the visual-search literature depend critically on response repetition. To assess this, we reevaluated a series of experiments recently published by Tower-Richardi, Leber, and Golomb (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 78(1), 114–132, 2016). Their goal was to determine the reference frame of spatial priming across visual search displays. Reassessment reveals that spatial priming was strongly dependent on response repetition when spatiotopic, retinotopic, and object-centered reference frames were perfectly confounded. However, when eye movements were made to dissociate the spatiotopic and object-centered reference frame from the retinotopic reference frame, spatial priming was positive and unaffected by response repetition. The findings demonstrate that at least two distinct processes factor into spatial priming across visual searches, which occur at different levels of representation.