The psychopathological phenomenon of delusions of influence comprises variable disturbances of the self-environment-border leading to the feeling of external influence on thoughts, feelings, impulses or behaviors. Delusions of influence are a hallmark in psychotic illness, but nevertheless, attenuated forms can also appear in healthy individuals. Here we present a newly developed paradigm to induce and assess feelings of external influence during instructed imaginations in healthy individuals. In the current study, we asked 60 healthy individuals to visually imagine different (...) objects. To induce feelings of external influence, we applied one of three different physical setups, and informed the participants whether or not an external influence was attempted during the respective trial. The physical setup as well as the information given to the participants alone were able to modulate the feeling of external influence in all three interventions. The impact of information significantly exceeded the impact of the physical setup on the ratings of experienced external influence. Moreover, the response latency correlated with the estimated feeling of external influence. Additional analyses addressed the influence of the emotional content of imagined objects and examined the intensity and emotional valence of the imaginations. Further supplemental analyses correlated external influence estimation of the participants with other psychopathological measures. In conclusion, this study endorses a quantitative model of psychopathological characteristics, in this case feelings of external influence that can be induced by external cues. (shrink)

Interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining momentum in academic and managerial circles. However, prior work in the area has paid little attention to how CSR initiatives should be implemented inside the organization. Against this backdrop, this study examines the impact of CSR initiatives on an important stakeholder group—employees. We build and test a comprehensive multilevel framework that focuses on whether employees derive job satisfaction from CSR programs. The proposed model predicts that a manager’s charismatic leadership influences employees’ interpretations (...) about the motives underlying their companies’ engagement in CSR initiatives (intrinsic and extrinsic CSR-induced attributions) which, in turn, influence employee job satisfaction. Hierarchical linear modeling of data from 47 organizational units comprising 438 employees from three world-leading manufacturing organizations shows that when employees think that their manager possesses charismatic leadership qualities, they tend to attribute the organization’s motives for engaging in CSR activities to intrinsic values, which, in turn, are positively associated with job satisfaction. Also, the extent to which managers are perceived as charismatic leaders relates positively to job satisfaction. Interestingly, CSR-induced extrinsic attributions are neither explained by charismatic leadership nor do they predict job satisfaction. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

While it is widely accepted that music evokes moods, there is disagreement over whether music-induced moods are relevant to the aesthetic appreciation of music as such. The arguments against the aesthetic relevance of music-induced moods are: moods cannot be intentionally directed at the music and music-induced moods are highly subjective experiences and are therefore a kind of mind-wandering. This paper presents a novel account of musical moods that avoids these objections. It is correct to say that a (...) listener’s entire mood is not relevant to the aesthetic appreciation of music. However, the experience of mood consists of having different feelings. Music induces feelings that are intentionally directed at the music and clusters of these feelings can be recognized as typical of a specific mood. Therefore, mood-feelings are relevant to the aesthetic appreciation of music. (shrink)

Power differentials are a ubiquitous feature of social interactions and power has been conceptualised as an interpersonal construct. Here we show that priming power changes the sense of agency, indexed by intentional binding. Specifically, participants wrote about episodes in which they had power over others, or in which others had power over them. After priming, participants completed an interval estimation task in which they judged the interval between a voluntary action and a visual effect. After low-power priming, participants judged intervals (...) to be significantly longer than judgments after high-power or no priming. Thus, intentional binding was significantly changed by low-power, suggesting that power reduces the sense of agency for action outcomes. Our results demonstrate a clear intrapersonal effect of power. We suggest that intentional binding could be employed to assess agency in individuals suffering from anxiety and depression, both of which are characterised by reduced feelings of personal control. (shrink)

The impact of induced mild positive feelings on working memory and complex decision making among older adults (aged 63–85) was examined. Participants completed a computer administered card task in which participants could win money if they chose from “gain” decks and lose money if they chose from “loss” decks. Individuals in the positive-feeling condition chose better than neutral-feeling participants and earned more money overall. Participants in the positive-feeling condition also demonstrated improved working-memory capacity. These effects of positive-feeling induction (...) have implications for affect theory, as well as, potentially, practical implications for people of all ages dealing with complex decisions. (shrink)

The emotions that people experience in day-to-day social situations are often mixed emotions. Although autobiographical recall is useful as an emotion induction procedure, it often involves recalling memories associated with a specific discrete emotion. However, real-life emotions occur freely and spontaneously, without such constraints. To understand real-life emotions, the present study examined characteristics of emotions that were elicited by recalling “stressful interpersonal events in daily life” without the targeted evocation of a specific discrete emotion. Assuming generation of mixed and complex (...) emotions, emotional groups with relatively strong correlation of multiple emotions according to surprise, fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and happiness were expected. Seventy-two university students participated in the study. In the emotion induction procedure, participants freely recalled memories as per the instructions on a monitor, and then responded silently to a series of questions concerning any one recalled incident. Assessments of emotional states using emotion scales and another item indicated that validated emotional changes had occurred during the task. Inter-correlations between six emotions demonstrated an emotional group consisting of disgust and anger, which frequently occur as negative interpersonal feelings, and that of fear and sadness. This indicated generation of mixed and complex emotions as experienced in social life. Future studies concerning relationships between these emotions and other factors, including neurophysiological responses, may facilitate further understanding about relationships between mental and physiological processes occurring in daily life. (shrink)

Using payment to recruit research subjects is a common practice, but it raises ethical concerns that coercion or undue inducement could potentially compromise participants’ informed consent. This is the first national study to explore the attitudes of IRB members and other human subjects protection professionals concerning whether payment of research participants constitutes coercion or undue influence, and if so, why. The majority of respondents expressed concern that payment of any amount might influence a participant’s decisions or behaviors regarding research participation. (...) Respondents expressed greater acceptance of payment as reimbursement or compensation than as an incentive to participate in research, and most agreed that subjects are coerced if the offer of payment makes them participate when they otherwise would not or when the offer of payment causes them to feel that they have no reasonable alternative but to participate . Views about undue influence were similar. We conclude that human subjects protection professionals hold expansive and inconsistent views about coercion and undue influence that may interfere with the recruitment of research participants and impede valuable research. (shrink)

BackgroundThis study is part of a major study about difficulties in communicating ethical problems within and among professional groups working in hemodialysis care. Describing experiences of ethically difficult situations that induce a troubled conscience may raise consciousness about ethical problems and thereby open the way to further reflection.The aim of this study was to illuminate the meanings of being in ethically difficult situations that led to the burden of a troubled conscience, as narrated by physicians working in dialysis care.MethodA phenomenological (...) hermeneutic method was used to analyze the transcribed narrative interviews with five physicians who had varying lengths of experience in nephrology.ResultsThe analysis shows that physicians working in hemodialysis care suffered from a troubled conscience when they felt torn by conflicting demands and trapped in irresolution. They faced ethical dilemmas where they were forced to make crucial decisions about life or death, or to prioritize when squeezed between time restraints and professional and personal demands. In these ethical dilemmas the physicians avoided arousing conflicts, were afraid of using their authority, were burdened by moral responsibility and felt devalued and questioned about their way of handling the situation. The findings point to another way of encountering ethical dilemmas, being guided by their conscience. This mean sharing the agony of deciding how to act, being brave enough to bring up the crucial problem, feeling certain that better ways of acting have not been overlooked, being respected and confirmed regarding decisions made.ConclusionThe meanings of being in ethically difficult situations that led to the burden of a troubled conscience in those working in hemodialysis care, indicate the importance of increasing the level of communication within and among various professional groups - to transform being burdened by a troubled conscience into using conscience as a guide - in situations where no way of solving the problem seems to be good. (shrink)

The way students perceive a learning climate (e.g. controlling or stimulating) is significantly influenced by feedback and assessment. However, at present much is unclear about the relation between feedback and motivational state. More specifically, the interplay with student characteristics is unclear. Since there is a strong increase of group work, the central research question is what are the effects of positive, neutral or negative feedback presented to collaborating teams of students, on students? intrinsic motivation, performance and on group processes? One (...) hundred thirty?eight higher education students participated in this study. There were no significant differences in performance across conditions. Multi?level analysis enabled a detailed comparison between groups and individual members of groups. Amongst others, it was found that feelings of competence facilitate the effect of positive feedback at the group level, which suggests that positive feedback boosts interest especially in groups of highly competent students. (shrink)

The position advanced in this paper is that the bedrock of emotional feelings is contained within the evolved emotional action apparatus of mammalian brains. This dual-aspect monism approach to brain–mind functions, which asserts that emotional feelings may reflect the neurodynamics of brain systems that generate instinctual emotional behaviors, saves us from various conceptual conundrums. In coarse form, primary process affective consciousness seems to be fundamentally an unconditional “gift of nature” rather than an acquired skill, even though those systems (...) facilitate skill acquisition via various felt reinforcements. Affective consciousness, being a comparatively intrinsic function of the brain, shared homologously by all mammalian species, should be the easiest variant of consciousness to study in animals. This is not to deny that some secondary processes cannot be evaluated in animals with sufficiently clever behavioral learning procedures, as with place-preference procedures and the analysis of changes in learned behaviors after one has induced re-valuation of incentives. Rather, the claim is that a direct neuroscientific study of primary process emotional/affective states is best achieved through the study of the intrinsic , albeit experientially refined, emotional action tendencies of other animals. In this view, core emotional feelings may reflect the neurodynamic attractor landscapes of a variety of extended trans-diencephalic, limbic emotional action systems—including SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, CARE, PANIC, and PLAY. Through a study of these brain systems, the neural infrastructure of human and animal affective consciousness may be revealed. Emotional feelings are instantiated in large-scale neurodynamics that can be most effectively monitored via the ethological analysis of emotional action tendencies and the accompanying brain neurochemical/electrical changes. The intrinsic coherence of such emotional responses is demonstrated by the fact that they can be provoked by electrical and chemical stimulation of specific brain zones—effects that are affectively laden. For substantive progress in this emerging research arena, animal brain researchers need to discuss affective brain functions more openly. Secondary awareness processes, because of their more conditional, contextually situated nature, are more difficult to understand in any neuroscientific detail. In other words, the information-processing brain functions, critical for cognitive consciousness, are harder to study in other animals than the more homologous emotional/motivational affective state functions of the brain. (shrink)

Men typically express more willingness than women to perpetrate fraudulent acts like lying in negotiations. However, women express just as much willingness in some cases. We develop and test a theory to explain these mixed findings. Specifically, we hypothesize that situational cues that bring about competitive or empathic feelings mitigate sex differences in lying to negotiation counterparts. Results from four experiments confirm our hypotheses. Experiment 1 showed that men and women express equal willingness to lie when negotiating with counterparts (...) toward whom they felt either great competitiveness or empathy. Experiment 2 extended these results by confirming that men only express more willingness to lie absent competitive or empathic feelings towards a counterpart. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that inducing competitive or empathic feelings toward a counterpart eliminated sex differences in lying by leading women to lie more and men to lie less, respectively. Overall, our results suggest that the extent to which negotiators experience competitive or empathic feelings play important roles in whether sex differences in lying in negotiations emerge. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes various ways in which language can act on our affect or emotion experience. From the commonsensical consideration that sometimes we use language merely to report or describe our feelings, I move on to discuss how language can constitute, clarify, and enhance them, as well as induce novel and oft surprising experiences. I also consider the social impact of putting feelings into words, including the reciprocal influences between emotion experience and the public dissemination of emotion labels (...) and descriptions, and how these influences depend on the power of labelling to make complex feelings visible and thus easily accessible. Finally, I address and reinterpret some psychological findings on the so-called “verbal overshadowing” effect. (shrink)

The relationship between affect and metacognitive processes has been largely overlooked in both the affect and the metacognition literatures. While at the core of many affect-cognition theories is the notion that positive affective states lead people to be more confident, few studies systematically investigated how positive affect influences confidence and strategic behaviour. In two experiments, when participants were free to control answer interval to general knowledge questions, participants induced with positive affect outperformed participants in a neutral affect condition. However, (...) in Experiment 1 positive affect participants showed larger overconfidence than neutral affect participants. In Experiment 2, enhanced salience of social cues eliminated this overconfidence disadvantage of positive affect relative to neutral affect participants, without compromising their enhanced performance. Notably, in both experiments, positive affect led to compromised social norms regarding the answers’ informativeness. Implications for both affect and metacognition are discussed. (shrink)

Fear, anger and hopelessness were the most frequent traumatic emotional responses in the general public during the first stage of outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in the Czech Republic (N = 1,000). The four most frequent categories of fear were determined: (a) fear of the negative impact on household finances, (b) fear of the negative impact on the household finances of significant others, (c) fear of the unavailability of health care, and (d) fear of an insufficient food supply. The pessimistic (...) communications used by the Czech mass media contributed to intensifying traumatic feelings, fears and psychological distress in the general public during the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic. The anxious emotional tone of the messages and the presentation of selectively chosen “bad ending stories” contributed to the psychological traumatization of the Czech population. This form of communication was motivated by an effort to reach the broadest audience possible. Older adults were the most affected part of the population because of their isolation and their very limited opportunity to share their worries and emotions with others. The communication used by the Czech mass media during the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic is a representative example of a traumatizing form of media communication during an epidemic. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom suggests mid-task rest as a potential approach to relieve the time-on-task (TOT) effect while accumulating evidence indicated that acute exercise might also effectively restore mental fatigue. However, few studies have explored the neural mechanism underlying these different break types, and the results were scattered. This study provided one of the first looks at how different types of fatigue-recovery break exerted influence on the cognitive processes by evaluating the corresponding behavioral improvement and neural response (EEG power spectral) in a (...) sustained attention task. Specifically, 19 participants performed three sessions of psychomotor vigilance tasks (PVT), with one session including a continuous 30-min PVT while the other two sessions additionally inserted a 15-min mid-task cycling and rest break, respectively. For behavioral performance, both types of break could restore objective vigilance transiently, while subjective feeling was only maintained after mid-task rest. Moreover, divergent patterns of EEG change were observed during post-break improvement. In detail, relative theta decreased and delta increased immediately after mid-task exercise, while decreased delta was found near the end of the rest-inserted task. Meanwhile, theta and delta could serve as neurological indicators to predict the reaction time change for exercise and rest intervention, respectively. In sum, our findings provided novel evidence to demonstrate divergent neural patterns following the mid-task exercise and rest intervention to counter TOT effects, which might lead to new insights into the nascent field of neuroergonomics for mental fatigue restoration. (shrink)

Let F be a fact in virtue of which an agent, S, is blameworthy for performing an act of A-ing. We advance a slightly qualified version of the following thesis: -/- (Reason) F is (at some time) a reason for S to feel guilty (to some extent) for A-ing. -/- Leaving implicit the qualification concerning extent, we claim as well: -/- (Desert) S's having this reason suffices for S’s deserving to feel guilty for A-ing. -/- We also advance a third (...) thesis connecting desert of feeling guilty with the fittingness of this response. -/- In light of our three theses, we address several claims that have been made regarding responsibility and desert. We take issue with the divorce of desert from responsibility. We find acceptable a claim regarding blameworthiness and reason to induce guilt, and we defend the idea that it is noninstrumentally good that one who is blameworthy be subject to a fitting feeling of guilt. We argue against a view on which desert of blame has a teleological dimension. (shrink)

To enable microbial colonisation of the gut mucosa, the intestinal immune system must not only react to danger signals but also recognize cues that indicate safety. Safety recognition, paradoxically, is mediated by the same environmental sensors that are involved in signalling danger. Indeed, in addition to their well established role in inducing inflammation in response to stress signals, pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and a variety of metabolic sensors also promote gut-microbiota symbiosis by responding to "microbial symbiosis factors", "resolution-associated molecular patterns", (...) markers of energy extraction and other signals indicating the absence of pathogenic infection and tissue damage. Here we focus on how the paradoxical role of immune receptors and other environmental sensors define the microbiota signature of the individual. (shrink)

This paper explores a fundamental similarity between cognitive models for crying and conceptions of insight, enlightenment or, in the context of art, “aesthetic experience.” All of which center on a process of initial discrepancy, followed by schema change, and conclude in a personal adjustment or a “transformation” of one’s image of the self. Because tears are argued to mark one of the only physical indicators of this cognitive outcome, and because the process is particularly salient in examples with art, I (...) argue that crying may provide an intriguing marker for empirical study of perceiving art. To explore this parallel, I offer a review of crying theory as well as of tearful cases with art, pointing out the key cognitive elements. I then introduce an expanded crying model, based upon our recent model of art experience which does consider insight and adjustment or application of the self. I also consider multiple emotional and evaluative factors, which may co-vary with crying response. This theoretical discussion is then applied in three exploratory, survey-based studies, conducted within U.K., Japan and U.S. museums, and including what is claimed to be the 20th century’s most tear-inducing abstract paintings. Results showed—with cross-cultural consistency—significant correlation between “feeling like crying” and a collection of responses posited to indicate a full progression to aesthetic experience. This also found correlation to positive assessment of artwork goodness, beauty, understanding of meaning, and to final reported self reflection and epiphany. I argue that, beyond the question of why we may cry, by considering implications of what tears may indicate for information processing, feeling like crying may be a compelling basis for identifying outcomes of perceptual (art) experience. (shrink)

Empathy is generally regarded as an emotional contagion between what one person feels and what another, the empathic person, comes to feel. This essay focuses on one aspect of the altruism/egoism debate involving empathy, that is, whether the empathy-induced motivation to help is egoistic, altruistic, or neither, and demonstrates that the philosophy of the Neo-Confucian Cheng Hao 程顥 can provide unique insights. By referring to Cheng's conceptions of empathy and oneness involved in his famous notions of benevolence and "ten (...) thousand things in one body", the present essay claims that the notions of egoism and altruism are inapplicable. It will introduce the notion of empathy in... (shrink)

Art museums are built to elicit a wide variety of feelings, emotions, and moods from their visitors. While these effects are primarily achieved through the artworks on display, museums commonly deploy numerous other affect-inducing resources as well, including architectural solutions, audio guides, lighting fixtures, and informational texts. Art museums can thus be regarded as spaces that are designed to influence affective experiencing through multiple structures and mechanisms. At face value, this may seem like a somewhat self-evident and trivial statement (...) to make. However, in this article, I argue that niche construction theory enables us to make several illuminating observations about the ways in which art museums are engineered to influence our feelings. To expound on this claim, I single out for discussion the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which for its entire lifespan (1939–52)—and prior to its evolution into the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—was expressly organized to kindle in its visitors a special, spiritual form of aesthetic experience: a liberating feeling of cosmic rhythm and order, no less. -/- The argument will proceed as follows: In Part 1, I introduce the basics of niche construction theory and specify the sense in which I apply it to museums and aesthetic affective experiencing. In Part 2, I outline the origins and ethos of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, after which I pin down the type of affective experience it fostered by drawing from visitors’ self-reported reactions to the artworks on display. Then, in Part 3, I use niche construction theory to explain how the Museum consciously fashioned itself, by means of various mutually supportive resources and technologies, into a fertile setting for the specified feelings. Finally, in Part 4, I extend beyond the discussed case to assess the implications of niche construction theory for a broader understanding of how art museums make us feel. In other words, by tracing the early steps of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting towards the present-day Guggenheim, I call attention to the general variation in affective niches as regards their structure, technologies, and affective aims. Overall, the article elucidates the functioning of art museums as affective niches and furthers the conceptual development of niche construction theory in aesthetics. (shrink)

The “pre-intentional” is a proposed category of mental states that conditions a subject’s experience of what is possible for them by, for example, modifying the motivational efficacy or experienced quality of intentional states, like beliefs or desires, without necessarily modifying their propositional content. Matthew Ratcliffe, who has coined the term, identifies the pre-intentional with existential feelings, senses of possibility like “feeling alive” or “feeling deadened,” and argues that these feelings are conditions of the possibility of the scope and (...) valence of intentional states. Jussi Saarinen questions if existential feelings should be understood as consciously occurring episodes or background affective styles, which has implications for the problem of “bi-directionality”: how or if intentional states might affect the pre-intentional. I first argue that answering Saarinen requires, contra Ratcliffe, the introduction of a feeling-disposition distinction: existential feelings are not pre-intentional structures but ways of becoming aware of the “existential dispositions” that are pre-intentional structures. I then propose a new definition of the pre-intentional: existential dispositions are a category of states that are introspectively opaque and so ambiguous between being an intentional state, like a “quasi-belief,” or non-intentional state, like a reflex. This allows for a novel account of what I, following Saarinen’s terminology, call indirect bi-directionality, and thus of indirectly induced existential change, which Ratcliffe only understands as spontaneous. To clarify how intentional states may influence the pre-intentional also clarifies how change in, say, beliefs about what one’s experiences of depression signify may induce existential change that alleviates the suffering of these experiences. (shrink)

(1)Four varieties of primitive affect are distinguishable, characterised by (a) strain, and (b) relaxation in response to a favourable situation, and by (c) strain, and (d) relaxation in response to one unfavourable. Exhilaration, gladness and interest arise from (a); ease, bliss and contentment from (b); uneasiness, distress and repugnance from (c), depression, sadness and apathy from (d). (2)These affects are due to (i) the organic harmony or discord induced by the environment; wherewith are evoked (ii) innately purposive patterns of (...) out-going locomotor and organic activity, partly self-controlled and producing organic sensations; the latter again induce (iii) organic harmony or discord. Self-activity is “affected” by (i), (ii) and (iii). An innate basis is afforded by (i) and (ii) for the affect, which is completely developed by (iii) derived from actual expression. (3)Instincts are integrated from different higher and lower reflexes, emotions from different instincts, sentiments from different emotions organized within progressively higher systems and subjected to control and inhibition, which are important determinants of the accompanying feeling. In the lowest reflexes the self is “affected” only by (iii). The higher reflexes are accompanied by the affects evoked as described above in (2). Instincts, emotions and sentiments are accom panied by their special feelings depending on the integration of dispositions to lower feelings and on (ii) and (iii). (shrink)

Context: The current study of emotions is based on theoretical models that limit the emotional experience. The collection of emotional data is through self-report questionnaires, restricting the description of emotional experience to broad concepts or induced preconceived qualities of how an emotion should be felt. Problem: Are the emotional experiences responding exclusively to these concepts and dimensions? Method: Music was used to lead participants into an emotional experience. Then a micro-phenomenological interview, a methodology with a phenomenological approach, was used (...) to guide their descriptions. Results: The descriptions of emotional experiences revealed a temporal structure that could have a linear or circular development. Moreover the qualitative aspects disclosed that these experiences are characterized by corporal sensations and marked variations of emotional intensity. Additionally, the emotional experience was embodied. Implications: The emotional experience is a dynamic process in which bodily sensations take a primary role, allowing the identification of such emotions. The integration of these first-person features of emotional experience with third-person data could lead to a better understanding and interpretation of emotional processes. Constructivist content: This article highlights the need to integrate first-person and third-person methodologies to study and explain human behavior in a comprehensive manner. Key Words: Emotion, experience, micro-phenomenological interview, body, music, affective neuroscience. (shrink)

Past experimental research has shown that social exclusion can be linked with radicalism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, feelings of social isolation and loneliness rose, just like protests and violence against national anti-COVID-19 measures did. Based on these observations, we hypothesized that feelings of exclusion induced by measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 were associated with radicalism intentions to illegally and violently fight COVID-19-related regulations among critics of the containment policies. Moreover, we expected that radicalism intentions against (...) COVID-19-related regulations fortified needs deprived by social exclusion. Studying a sample of individuals who opposed the measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, we found evidence for both hypotheses: Results revealed that feelings of social exclusion induced by COVID-19 containment measures predicted radicalism intentions. Moreover, the relationship between exclusion and radicalism was associated with fortifying power issues. Political opinion did not moderate these effects. These data replicate the exclusion-radicalism link in the COVID-19 crisis and add one more factor that may have promoted radical developments during that time. Fortifying feelings of power, radicalism appeared to foster well-being, though at a high political price. (shrink)

People suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) do things they do not want to do, and/or they think things they do not want to think. In about 10 percent of OCD patients, none of the available treatment options is effective. A small group of these patients is currently being treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS). Deep brain stimulation involves the implantation of electrodes in the brain. These electrodes give a continuous electrical pulse to the brain area in which they are implanted. (...) It turns out that patients may experience profound changes as a result of DBS treatment. It is not just the symptoms that change; patients rather seem to experience a different way of being in the world. These global effects are insufficiently captured by traditional psychiatric scales, which mainly consist of behavioural measures of the severity of the symptoms. In this article we aim to capture the changes in the patients’ phenomenology and make sense of the broad range of changes they report. For that we introduce an enactive, affordance-based model that fleshes out the dynamic interactions between person and world in four aspects. The first aspect is the patients’ experience of the world. We propose to specify the patients’ world in terms of a field of affordances, with the three dimensions of broadness of scope (‘width’ of the field), temporal horizon (‘depth’), and relevance of the perceived affordances (‘height’). The second aspect is the person-side of the interaction, that is, the patients’ self-experience, notably their moods and feelings. Thirdly, we point to the different characteristics of the way in which patients relate to the world. And lastly, the existential stance refers to the stance that patients take towards the changes they experience: the second-order evaluative relation to their interactions and themselves. With our model we intend to specify the notion of being in the world in order to do justice to the phenomenological effects of DBS treatment. (shrink)

Explanatory accounts of emotion require, among other things, theoretically tractable representations of emotional experience. Common methods for producing such representations have well-known drawbacks, such as observer interference or lack of ecological validity. Literature offers a valuable supplement. It provides detailed instructions for simulating emotions; when successful, it induces empathic emotions. It too involves distortions, through emotion-intensifying idealization and ideological biases. But these also relate to emotion study. There are three levels at which literature bears on emotion research: (1) the individual (...) work; (2) generic and related patterns; and (3) properties found widely across individual works and genres. Even at the third, most general level, literature suggests potentially important hypotheses about our pleasure in emotional simulation and our need to share emotional experiences. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that misperceptions and illusory experiences can occur if sensory stimulation is withdrawn or becomes invariant even for short periods of time. Using a perceptual deprivation paradigm, we created a monotonous audiovisual environment and asked participants to verbally report any auditory, visual or body-related phenomena they experienced. The data (analysed using a variant of interpretative phenomenological analysis) revealed two main themes: (1) reported sensory phenomena have different spatial characteristics ranging from simple percepts to the feeling of immersion (...) in a complex multisensory environment and (2) the active contribution of the perceiver where participants report engaging in exploratory processes even when there is nothing to find. Detailed analysis of the qualitative data further showed that participants who reported more perceptual phenomena were more likely to report internal bodily sensations, move more during the experiment and score higher on the Revised Hallucination Scale than those reporting fewer percepts explicitly linking perceptual deprivation to somatic phenomena. The results demonstrate how the variety of sensory experiences induced by perceptual deprivation can give further insight into the factors mediating conscious awareness and may suggest ways in which the brain imposes meaning on the environment under invariant sensory conditions. (shrink)

Hooks et al. posit that gastrointestinal microbes alter the end state of development indirectly. Here, we present the immune system as the link that facilitates communication between the gut and the brain. Illustrating the case of autism spectrum disorder, we explicate the role of the immune system in responding to microbial dysbiosis by inducing an inflammatory state that affects neurodevelopment. We propose two models: directly, within the infant, and indirectly, via maternal and infant systems.

The present study examined the relationship between vital exhaustion, Cloninger's temperament dimensions, and state affects during experimentally induced stress among participants aged 22–37 years. Larsen and Diener's circumplex model of affect was used to structure the self-reported affects. Temperament was measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory. Feelings of exhaustion were assessed by the Maastricht Questionnaire. Stressors used were an aversive startle task, an appetitive mental arithmetic task, and an aversive choice-deadline reaction time task. The results showed that (...) the level of vital exhaustion among healthy persons is related to unpleasant state affects other than state fatigue. Temperament also modified the relationship between vital exhaustion and affects. In addition, vital exhaustion was related to a tendency to behavioural inhibition (harm avoidance). Our findings suggest that temperament is related to feelings of exhaustion and is likely to predispose to negative affectivity when accompanied by exhaustion. (shrink)

The sense of agency is the experience of being the origin of a sensory consequence. This study investigates whether contextual beliefs modulate low-level sensorimotor processes which contribute to the emergence of the sense of agency. We looked at the influence of causal beliefs on ‘intentional binding’, a phenomenon which accompanies self-agency. Participants judged the onset-time of either an action or a sound which followed the action. They were induced to believe that the tone was either triggered by themselves or (...) by somebody else, although, in reality, the sound was always triggered by the participants. We found that intentional binding was stronger when participants believed that they triggered the tone, compared to when they believed that another person triggered the tone. These results suggest that high-level contextual information influences sensorimotor processes responsible for generating intentional binding. (shrink)

The results of three experiments suggest that pre-existing mood increases the intensity of affectively congruent emotions while dampening the intensity of incongruent emotions independent of attributional knowledge. This result was obtained using a new method for inducing mood states unobtrusively and with minimal or no cognitive concomitants. The results of Experiment 1 revealed that for participants who were exposed to positive feedback a pre-existing positive mood led to stronger feelings of pride in comparison to negative mood. The results of (...) Experiments 2 and 3 suggest that pre-existing mood directly influences the experience of subsequently elicited emotions independent of what one knows about the causes of this feeling. When participants were required to differentiate between the funniness of a cartoon and their subjective humour response, mood influenced only the latter judgement (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, reminding participants of the mood induction resulted in a contrast effect in judging the funniness of a cartoon. However, the pre-existing mood continued to exert an assimilation effect on the overt mirth response. In conclusion, these results suggest that the feeling and knowledge component are partly independent bases of emotional responses. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.2 (2004) 1-6 [Access article in PDF] Once Again, This Time with Feeling Stephen Davies The arbitrariness of so many virtuosos is partly responsible for the excess of expression marks to be found in the works of composers who thus hoped to forestall distortion and misinterpretation. Yet, complete control over the performer is not only impossible but also undesirable. The only remedy is to (...) improve the education of performers in matters of musical style and taste. The most common fault is the application of a Romantic, that is, a highly expressive treatment of non-Romantic music, such as the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. The deplorable result is an overdoing of all nuances: the use of prestissimo instead of allegro, of larghissimo instead of adagio, of fff and ppp instead of f and p, of frequent crescendi and decrescendi instead of an even level of sonority, of numerous rubatos, ritardandos, and accelerandos instead of strictly kept tempo, etc. In view of all these tendencies nothing seems to be more important for the student than to learn to play without expression. Only the pianist who has learned to play Bach's Chromatic Fantasia or Beethoven's Apassionata in the most rigid way will be able to add that amount of nuances and shades which these works properly require.1 Prelude How does the performer communicate the emotional expressiveness imparted by the composer to his music? The response to this question will depend on one's view of performance. For Western works specified notationally(to which I will restrict the following discussion), a plausible position regards musical performance as analogous to quotation. The performer's task and intention is, by following the composer's score, to repeat or re-create an "utterance" made originally by the composer, and, thereby, to convey what he meant by it. The response will depend also on one's theory as regards the manner in which music is expressive of emotion. [End Page 1] Expressive Performance as Feeling or Simulation One such account, known as the expression theory, has it that music is expressive of an emotion just in case the composer experienced that emotion and gave vent to it through the act of composition; the work, his "utterance," betrays what he felt. In that case, the performer's task is to quote the composer's utterance in a manner that betrays the same emotion. Rather than merely mouthing what he says, she will invest it with the passion that would be typical of someone's giving direct expression to his or her experience of the relevant emotion. She might adopt either of two approaches to this end. Like the "method" actor, she might induce an equivalent emotion in herself and affirm what she quotes as an expression of her own feeling, this being one she shares with the composer. Or she might simulate the expression of the appropriate emotion. She articulates the composer's utterance as if she felt what he did.According to the arousal theory, music is expressive of a given emotion just in case the audience is aroused to an experience of that emotion as a consequence of listening to and following the music. In that case, the performer's goal is to move the auditor to an appropriate emotional response by "quoting" the composer. One of the most compelling ways of doing so would be by eliciting an empathetic reaction. Provided the performer demonstrates the appropriate feeling with sufficient ardor, she can rely on the natural human sympathy of the audience to kindle in them a reaction echoing her own emotion. Accordingly, she should proceed as already described, either by inciting herself to the appropriate emotion and showing it in her manner of playing, or, at least, by acting if she is in the grip of that emotion, even if she is not.There are grounds for rejecting both the emotivist and the arousal theories of musical expressiveness, but independent of those reasons, it should be apparent that what these accounts imply about the manner of performing music expressively is... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.2 (2004) 1-6 [Access article in PDF] Once Again, This Time with Feeling Stephen Davies The arbitrariness of so many virtuosos is partly responsible for the excess of expression marks to be found in the works of composers who thus hoped to forestall distortion and misinterpretation. Yet, complete control over the performer is not only impossible but also undesirable. The only remedy is to (...) improve the education of performers in matters of musical style and taste. The most common fault is the application of a Romantic, that is, a highly expressive treatment of non-Romantic music, such as the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. The deplorable result is an overdoing of all nuances: the use of prestissimo instead of allegro, of larghissimo instead of adagio, of fff and ppp instead of f and p, of frequent crescendi and decrescendi instead of an even level of sonority, of numerous rubatos, ritardandos, and accelerandos instead of strictly kept tempo, etc. In view of all these tendencies nothing seems to be more important for the student than to learn to play without expression. Only the pianist who has learned to play Bach's Chromatic Fantasia or Beethoven's Apassionata in the most rigid way will be able to add that amount of nuances and shades which these works properly require.1 Prelude How does the performer communicate the emotional expressiveness imparted by the composer to his music? The response to this question will depend on one's view of performance. For Western works specified notationally(to which I will restrict the following discussion), a plausible position regards musical performance as analogous to quotation. The performer's task and intention is, by following the composer's score, to repeat or re-create an "utterance" made originally by the composer, and, thereby, to convey what he meant by it. The response will depend also on one's theory as regards the manner in which music is expressive of emotion. [End Page 1] Expressive Performance as Feeling or Simulation One such account, known as the expression theory, has it that music is expressive of an emotion just in case the composer experienced that emotion and gave vent to it through the act of composition; the work, his "utterance," betrays what he felt. In that case, the performer's task is to quote the composer's utterance in a manner that betrays the same emotion. Rather than merely mouthing what he says, she will invest it with the passion that would be typical of someone's giving direct expression to his or her experience of the relevant emotion. She might adopt either of two approaches to this end. Like the "method" actor, she might induce an equivalent emotion in herself and affirm what she quotes as an expression of her own feeling, this being one she shares with the composer. Or she might simulate the expression of the appropriate emotion. She articulates the composer's utterance as if she felt what he did.According to the arousal theory, music is expressive of a given emotion just in case the audience is aroused to an experience of that emotion as a consequence of listening to and following the music. In that case, the performer's goal is to move the auditor to an appropriate emotional response by "quoting" the composer. One of the most compelling ways of doing so would be by eliciting an empathetic reaction. Provided the performer demonstrates the appropriate feeling with sufficient ardor, she can rely on the natural human sympathy of the audience to kindle in them a reaction echoing her own emotion. Accordingly, she should proceed as already described, either by inciting herself to the appropriate emotion and showing it in her manner of playing, or, at least, by acting if she is in the grip of that emotion, even if she is not.There are grounds for rejecting both the emotivist and the arousal theories of musical expressiveness, but independent of those reasons, it should be apparent that what these accounts imply about the manner of performing music expressively is... (shrink)

The influence of attachment style—anxious and avoidant attachment—on subjective responses to socially excluded experiences termed “Need-Threat” remains inconsistent. Need-Threat is a composite score of four fundamental needs: belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence. Individuals with high AX tend to spend much effort maintaining strong connections with others, while those with high AV tend to maintain high levels of self-esteem by distancing themselves from others. Therefore, attachment style is most likely to influence the need associated with each style. In addition, since (...) individuals with high AV satisfy their needs by keeping independence from others, they would experience the Need-Threat against excessive inclusion from others. This study aimed to investigate the influence of attachment style on each Need-Threat response to various inclusionary statuses. A total of 133 undergraduate students were equally assigned to low or high groups for each attachment style. Participants played one of the three types of the cyberball task : excluded, included, or over-included situation. The high AV group felt fewer threats to self-esteem than the low AV group in the excluded situation. Furthermore, only in the over-included situation did the high AV group feel more threats to belonging and self-esteem than the low AV group. AX did not influence any situation. These findings suggest that individuals with high AV would have a restrictive alleviation effect on adverse subjective responses to socially excluded experiences but demonstrate maladaptive subjective responses to over-included experiences. (shrink)

The ideas of technological determinism and the autonomy of technology are long-standing and widespread. This article explores why the use of certain technologies is perceived to be obligatory, thus fueling the fatalism of technological determinism and undermining our sense of freedom vis-à-vis the use of technologies. Three main mechanisms that might explain “obligatory technologies” (technologies that must be adopted) are explored. First, competition between individuals or groups drives the adoption of technologies that enhance or extend human capacities. Second, individuals and (...) groups may become dependent on technologies. Third, technologies induce changes in social norms and values that may come to be enforced through various social mechanisms, including the law. The widespread ideology of the beneficence and inevitability of technological progress in our culture helps this process along. (shrink)

This article reflects on pivotal concepts of psychoanalytic practice and theory, applied to a single case study to create new meanings. Drawing from the concepts of transference, countertransference, and projective identification, the author presents the notion that the researcher's subjective reactions are created and induced by the subject of study precisely because this is one, and sometimes the only way available to the subject to communicate something that is out of its full awareness. In essence, some unconscious material can (...) be expressed nonverbally by the subject by means of provoking visceral and bodily reactions in the researcher, or in some cases, psychic imagery such as dreams or fantasies. The material can be meaningfully interpreted by the researcher by receiving, containing, and sorting through these inchoate emotional reactions within self. (shrink)

In their cognitive theory of emotion, Schachter and Singer proposed that feelings are separable from what they are about. As a test, they induced feelings of arousal by injecting epinephrine and then molded them into different emotions. They illuminated how feelings in one moment lead into the next to form a stream of conscious experience. We examine the construction of emotion in a similar spirit. We use the sensory integration process to understand how the brain combines (...) disparate sources of information to construct both perceptual and emotional models of the world even as the world continues to change. We emphasize two processes: affect segmentation and affect integration. (shrink)