Effects of Verbal Processing on Psychiatric Patients’ Proactive Coping Skills Using Recreational Music Therapy

Psychiatric patients who are able to cope with life stressors and appropriately use leisure time are less likely to be rehospitalized. The purpose of this study was to examine how verbal processing of recreational music therapy affected psychiatric patients’ knowledge and use of coping and leisure skills. The researchers utilized a quasirandomized controlled design and collected data at pretest, immediately before discharge, and at one month postdischarge. The researchers isolated verbal processing within recreational music therapy sessions to determine if the verbal-processing component affected proactive coping and patients’ use of coping and leisure skills. Using the Proactive Coping Scale, the researchers measured patients’ proactive coping before and after attending recreational music therapy sessions. Results indicated no significant between-group differences in patients’ proactive coping scores. Difficulties conducting research in psychiatric settings, clinical implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

先齐乐舞蠡测

世上任何一种文化的形成,一般都有其承继性与融合性特点。作为齐文化重要组成部分的齐国乐舞当然也不例外,它也是在齐文化的形成过程中,承继了东夷乐舞的成就,融合了尧、舜、禹三代之乐而形成的。东夷族是个喜歌好舞的民族,他们的歌舞活动,不仅造就了众多乐歌和乐舞,而且催生出了众多乐器,同时还出现了乐教、乐论和礼乐。为此作出重要贡献的有太3伏羲氏、少3金天氏、葛天氏、颛顼高阳氏、帝喾高辛氏、大舜有虞氏、东莱部落和夷夏部族联盟,就是他们为齐国乐舞打下了坚实的基础。     

Emotions induced by operatic music: psychophysiological effects of music, plot, and acting: a scientist's tribute to Maria Callas

Operatic music involves both singing and acting (as well as rich audiovisual background arising from the orchestra and elaborate scenery and costumes) that multiply the mechanisms by which emotions are induced in listeners. The present study investigated the effects of music, plot, and acting performance on emotions induced by opera. There were three experimental conditions: (1) participants listened to a musically complex and dramatically coherent excerpt from Tosca; (2) they read a summary of the plot and listened to the same musical excerpt again; and (3) they re-listened to music while they watched the subtitled film of this acting performance. In addition, a control condition was included, in which an independent sample of participants succesively listened three times to the same musical excerpt. We measured subjective changes using both dimensional, and specific music-induced emotion questionnaires. Cardiovascular, electrodermal, and respiratory responses were also recorded, and the participants kept track of their musical chills. Music listening alone elicited positive emotion and autonomic arousal, seen in faster heart rate, but slower respiration rate and reduced skin conductance. Knowing the (sad) plot while listening to the music a second time reduced positive emotions (peacefulness, joyful activation), and increased negative ones (sadness), while high autonomic arousal was maintained. Watching the acting performance increased emotional arousal and changed its valence again (from less positive/sad to transcendent), in the context of continued high autonomic arousal. The repeated exposure to music did not by itself induce this pattern of modifications. These results indicate that the multiple musical and dramatic means involved in operatic performance specifically contribute to the genesis of music-induced emotions and their physiological correlates.     

Music preferences and personality among Japanese university students

Little research has been conducted outside of the European-North American cultural area concerning the personality-based determinants of musical genre preferences The present research investigated the personality profiles and general music genre preferences of 268 Japanese college students. Six dimensions and 24 facets of personality, and 12 music genres, were assessed. Results indicated that, consistent with much previous research, openness (to experience) and particularly the facet of "aesthetic appreciation" were associated with a preference for "reflective" music (jazz, classical, opera, gospel, enka), while one extraversion facet (sociability) was associated with the preference for pop music. Other personality dimensions were less consistently associated with musical preferences, pointing to cultural differences and the need to assess both personality and music genres at more specific levels.     

Young people's topography of musical functions: Personal, social and cultural experiences with music across genders and six societies

How can we understand the uses of music in daily life? Music is a universal phenomenon but with significant interindividual and cultural variability. Listeners’ gender and cultural background may influence how and why music is used in daily life. This paper reports the first investigation of a holistic framework and a new measure of music functions (RESPECT‐music) across genders and six diverse cultural samples (students from Germany, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, and Turkey). Two dimensions underlie the mental representation of music functions. First, music can be used for contemplation or affective functions. Second, music can serve intrapersonal, social, and sociocultural functions. Results reveal that gender differences occur for affective functions, indicating that female listeners use music more for affective functions, i.e., emotional expression, dancing, and cultural identity. Country differences are moderate for social functions (values, social bonding, dancing) and strongest for sociocultural function (cultural identity, family bonding, political attitudes). Cultural values, such as individualism–collectivism and secularism–traditionalism, can help explain cross‐cultural differences in the uses of music. Listeners from more collectivistic cultures use music more frequently for expressing values and cultural identity. Listeners from more secular and individualistic cultures like to dance more. Listeners from more traditional cultures use music more for expressing values and cultural identity, and they bond more frequently with their families over music. The two dimensions of musical functions seem systematically underpinned by listeners’ gender and cultural background. We discuss the uses of music as behavioral expressions of affective and contemplative as well as personal, social, and sociocultural aspects in terms of affect proneness and cultural values.     

Developmental Improvements in Perceptual Restoration: Can Young Children Reconstruct Missing Sounds in Noisy Environments?

Young children are frequently exposed to sounds such as speech and music in noisy listening conditions, which have the potential to disrupt their learning. Missing input that is masked by louder sounds can, under the right conditions, be ‘filled in’ by the perceptual system using a process known as perceptual restoration. This experiment compared the ability of 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children, 9‐ to 11‐year‐old children and adults to complete a melody identification task using perceptual restoration. Melodies were presented either intact (complete input), with noise‐filled gaps (partial input; perceptual restoration can occur) or with silence‐filled gaps (partial input; perceptual restoration cannot occur). All age groups could use perceptual restoration to help them interpret partial input, yet perception was the most detrimentally affected by the presentation of partial input for the youngest children. This implies that they might have more difficulty perceiving sounds in noisy environments than older children or adults. Young children had particular difficulty using partial input for identification under conditions where perceptual restoration could not occur. These findings suggest that perceptual restoration is a crucial mechanism in young children, where processes that fill in missing sensory input represent an important part of the way meaning is extracted from a complex sensory world. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

感知音乐音质的EEG探究

欣赏音乐是一种审美的体验活动,不同的音质会使人产生不同的感受。为探究音乐和EEG的关系,本文选用音乐《黑人舞曲》,运用主成分分析等方法,研究了11位在校大学生在欣赏不同音质音乐时的EEG特征。结果发现:在欣赏不同音质音乐时大脑皮层右颞等处快波功率差异显著。大脑对音乐的精细加工与大脑右颞等区的电活动密切相关。     

不同类型音乐对悲伤情绪舒缓作用的EEG研究

该研究采用EEG法探究音乐对悲伤情绪舒缓作用。选取中国古典、流行、摇滚及班得瑞音乐及悲伤影片。播放影片诱发悲伤情绪后,用音乐进行舒缓,同步采集脑电,分析得脑电功率谱(PS)及重心频率(GF)。结果表明,影片显著降低了GF及α频段PS;古典音乐GF最高,且诱发的α段PS最高,摇滚乐最低;脑对音乐加工的性别差异显著,半球差异不显著;主观体验悲伤度与α波PS显著负相关。所选音乐均具情绪舒缓作用,中国古典音乐最佳;α波PS,可作为反映悲伤-快乐情绪体验变化的脑电指标。     

Beneficial effects of a music listening intervention on neural speech processing in 0–28-month-old children at risk for dyslexia

Familial risk for developmental dyslexia can compromise auditory and speech processing and subsequent language and literacy development. According to the phonological deficit theory, supporting phonological development during the sensitive infancy period could prevent or ameliorate future dyslexic symptoms. Music is an established method for supporting auditory and speech processing and even language and literacy, but no previous studies have investigated its benefits for infants at risk for developmental language and reading disorders. We pseudo-randomized N∼150 infants at risk for dyslexia to vocal or instrumental music listening interventions at 0–6 months, or to a no-intervention control group. Music listening was used as an easy-to-administer, cost-effective intervention in early infancy. Mismatch responses (MMRs) elicited by speech-sound changes were recorded with electroencephalogram (EEG) before (at birth) and after (at 6 months) the intervention and at a 28 months follow-up. We expected particularly the vocal intervention to promote phonological development, evidenced by enhanced speech-sound MMRs and their fast maturation. We found enhanced positive MMR amplitudes in the vocal music listening intervention group after but not prior to the intervention. Other music activities reported by parents did not differ between the three groups, indicating that the group effects were attributable to the intervention. The results speak for the use of vocal music in early infancy to support speech processing and subsequent language development in infants at developmental risk.

Research Highlights

• Dyslexia-risk infants were pseudo-randomly assigned to a vocal or instrumental music listening intervention at home from birth to 6 months of age.
• Neural mismatch responses (MMRs) to speech-sound changes were enhanced in the vocal music intervention group after but not prior to the intervention.
• Even passive vocal music listening in early infancy can support phonological development known to be deficient in dyslexia-risk.

     

Rhythm and Melody in Children and Adolescents after Left or Right Temporal Lobectomy

Rhythm (a pattern of onset times and duration of sounds) and melody (a pattern of sound pitches) were studied in 22 children and adolescents several years after temporal lobectomy for intractable epilepsy. Left and right lobectomy groups discriminated rhythms equally well, but the right lobectomy group was poorer at discriminating melodies. Children and adolescents with right lobectomy, but not those with left temporal lobectomy, had higher melody scores with increasing age. Rhythm but not melody was related to memory for the right lobectomy group. In neither group was melody related to age at onset of non-febrile seizures, time from surgery to music tests, or the linear amount of temporal lobe resection. Pitch and melodic contour show different patterns of lateralization after temporal lobectomy in childhood or adolescence.