Echoing the emotions of others: empathy is related to how adults and children map emotion onto the body

ABSTRACT

Empathy involves a mapping between the emotions observed in others and those experienced in one’s self. However, effective social functioning also requires an ability to differentiate one’s own emotional state from that of others. Here, we sought to examine the relationship between trait measures of empathy and the self-other distinction during emotional experience in both children and adults. We used a topographical self-report method (emBODY tool) in which participants drew on a silhouette of a human body where they felt an emotional response while watching film and music clips, as well as where they believed the character in the film or performer was feeling an emotion. We then assessed how the degree of overlap between the bodily representation of self versus other emotions related to trait empathy. In adults, the degree of overlap in the body maps was correlated with Perspective Taking. This relationship between cognitive empathy and degree of overlap between self and other was also found with children (8–11 years old), even though children performed worse on the task overall. The results suggest that mapping emotions observed or imagined in other’s bodies onto our own is related to the development of empathy.     

Saccades predict and synchronize to visual rhythms irrespective of musical beats

ABSTRACT

Music has been shown to entrain movement. One of the body’s most frequent movements, saccades, are arguably subject to a timer that may also be susceptible to musical entrainment. We developed a continuous and highly-controlled visual search task and varied the timing of the search target presentation, it was either gaze-contingent, tap-contingent, or visually-timed. We found: (1) explicit control of saccadic timing is limited to gross duration variations and imprecisely synchronized; (2) saccadic timing does not implicitly entrain to musical beats, even when closely aligned in phase; (3) eye movements predict visual onsets produced by motor-movements (finger-taps) and externally-timed sequences, beginning fixation prior to visual onset; (4) eye movement timing can be rhythmic, synchronizing to both motor-produced and externally timed visual sequences; each unaffected by musical beats. These results provide evidence that saccadic timing is sensitive to the temporal demands of visual tasks and impervious to influence from musical beats.     

Costs and Utilities Perspective of Consumers' Intentions to Engage in Online Music Sharing: Consumers' Knowledge Matters

Online music sharing, deemed illegal for invading intellectual property rights under current laws, has become a crucial issue for the music industry in the modern digital age, but few have investigated the potential costs and utilities for individuals involved in such online misbehavior. This study aimed to fill in this gap to predict consumers' intentions to engage in online music sharing and further consider consumers' online music sharing knowledge as a moderator in the research model. The results of repeated measures analysis of variance of costs and utilities of online music sharing not only give more detailed information to grasp empirical implications but also provide some suggestions to the music industry in Taiwan.     

Book review

Job's illness, loss, grief and integration. A psychological interpretation J. H. Kahn, M.D., F.R.C. Psych., D.P.M. Published by Pergamon Int. Library £6.00

Explorations in autism: A psycho-analytical study by Donald Meltzer, John Bremner, Shirley Hoxter, Doreen Wedell and ISCA Wittenberg     

On the Petite Phrase of Proust and the Experience of Empathy: Exploring the Rhythmical Structure of Music

How does music (as Proust tells us) have the power to speak to us as if it were a living being, endowed with subjectivity? Do we empathize with music? Ordinarily we consider our perception of subjects as subjects, through empathy, to pertain to flesh-and-blood persons; this article asks how it is possible for us to empathize with the ordered movement of aural sensations in time. Drawing upon Edith Stein’s On the Problem of Empathy together with Edmund Husserl’s work on Querintentionalität and Längsintentionalität in Husserliana X, I show, first of all, how the temporal structure of inner time-consciousness pertains to the ordered structure of musical expression; secondly, I investigate how the other as other is given with respect to retention and protention. My claim is that musical expression, insofar as it partakes of the potentiality of protention in particular, is creative and opens the possibility for that which is other-than-myself.     

音乐学习对语言加工的促进作用

音乐学习可以增强个体的艺术素养,同时,音乐学习对其他认知加工过程尤其是语言学习还有正面的促进作用。近年来国内外学者主要围绕着音乐家、音乐学习障碍个体开展了一系列相关工作,同时还进行了相关的追踪研究。值得注意的是,有关音乐学习促进语言加工的实证依据主要来自横断研究,还需要更多的纵向追踪研究来进一步提供因果关系的证据。这方面的工作将最终促进音乐学习与训练在教育与医疗领域的广泛应用。     

声音影响饮食行为:实证进展与理论构思

饮食行为包含个体对饮食的风味感知、口感评价、情绪感受、个人饮食偏好以及外显的进饮动作等一系列心理与行为过程。研究相继表明:声音主要通过影响人们对饮食的感官感受性与喜好程度来影响饮食行为。饮食行为中的声音信息包括内感受性线索(Interoceptive cues),即个体与饮食的交互音(如咀嚼食物声、吞咽饮品声,制作与准备饮食过程中的声音等);外感受性线索(exteroceptive cues),即环境音(主要指噪音)与背景音乐。行为研究结果普遍强调认知因素在声音与饮食间所起的作用,如注意的分散与转移、跨通道联结(匹配性效应)、期望与回避(潜在的音画效应)等。而神经科学则以"听-嗅-味"为突破口,从"多通道整合"的角度为理论间的争议寻求更为清晰的证据与潜在的内部机制;与此同时,情绪唤醒、躯体标示(内隐联结)与具身认知视角有望成为新的理论整合点。     

Reexamination of mood-mediation hypothesis of background-music-dependent effects in free recall

The present study reexamined the mood-mediation hypothesis for explaining background-music-dependent effects in free recall. Experiments 1 and 2 respectively examined tempo- and tonality-dependent effects in free recall, which had been used as evidence for the mood-mediation hypothesis. In Experiments 1 and 2, undergraduates (n?=?75 per experiment) incidentally learned a list of 20 unrelated words presented one by one at a rate of 5 s per word and then received a 30-s delayed oral free-recall test. Throughout the study and test sessions, a piece of music was played. At the time of test, one third of the participants received the same piece of music with the same tempo or tonality as at study, one third heard a different piece with the same tempo or tonality, and one third heard a different piece with a different tempo or tonality. Note that the condition of the same piece with a different tempo or tonality was excluded. Furthermore, the number of sampled pieces of background music was increased compared with previous studies. The results showed neither tempo- nor tonality-dependent effects, but only a background-music-dependent effect. Experiment 3 (n?=?40) compared the effects of background music with a verbal association task and focal music (only listening to musical selections) on the participants’ moods. The results showed that both the music tempo and tonality influenced the corresponding mood dimensions (arousal and pleasantness). These results are taken as evidence against the mood-mediation hypothesis. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Change deafness across voices in music and language

ABSTRACT

Listeners made same/different evaluations of a pair of musical presentations separated by a broadband noise. In the first experiment, the pair had either the same or a different: singers voice, language (Spanish or English), and reverberation (dry or very high reverb). A second experiment was conducted using the same vocal melodies played on guitars to emphasize non-linguistic content. In both Experiments 1 and 2, large-scale changes to Reverb were either completely undetected or ignored. A change of language in Experiment 1 supported only minimal sensitivity to change detection. Changes to multiple variables tended to increase listener sensitivity to a stimulus change. The results seem to indicate that the semantic coherence created by a musical background may limit attention to linguistic changes and voicing. Rather, those changes that more directly influence musical quality may be of greater salience in a musical context.