The objective of this study was to examine whether the “step back and watch” attitude of mindfulness manifests in less emotional behavior. We hypothesized that the “acceptance” facet of mindfulness, but not the “presence” facet, is negatively associated with the magnitude of emotional behavior in four tests, i.e., rating of words, rating of aversive and neutral pictures, and evaluative conditioning . Additionally, we hypothesized that the acceptance facet is associated with increased reaction time in an emotional Stroop test, and that (...) the presence facet is associated with decreased RT and lower error rate. The sample consisted of N = 247 non-clinical adults and was tested in a cross-sectional study. The results provide partial evidence that the acceptance facet of mindfulness may be associated with less aversive reactions towards aversive stimuli. Future studies should substantiate these findings but also determine their clinical relevance. (shrink)

Emotional feeling can be defined as the affective constituent of emotions representing a subjective experience such as, for example, feeling love or hate. Several recent neuroimaging studies have focused on this affective component of emotions thereby aiming to characterise the underlying neural correlates. These studies indicate that the orbitomedial prefrontal cortex is crucially involved in the processing of emotional feeling. It is the aim of this paper to analyse the extent to which the present state of the art in neuroscience (...) enables emotional feeling to be related to specific brain regions. In the first step, methodological and theoretical problems in the investigation of emotional feeling will be discussed leading to the characterisation of a “twofold gap.” This gap represents (a) the theoretical difficulties encountered in transforming vivid subjective experience into a theoretical psychological concept, and (b) the problems of implementing such a concept by performing empirical studies. Based on these considerations we suggest approaches for future empirical studies. In the second step, a group of functional neuroimaging studies focusing on the affective constituent of emotions will be discussed in detail with regard to the theoretical problems outlined in the first step. (shrink)

We hypothesize that rapid eye movement or REM sleep evolved, in part, to mediate sexual/reproductive behaviors and strategies. Because development of sexual and mating strategies depends crucially on early attachment experiences, we further hypothesize that REM functions to mediate attachment processes early in life. Evidence for these hypotheses comes from (1) the correlation of REM variables with both attachment and sexual/reproductive variables; (2) attachment-related and sex-related hormonal release during REM; (3) selective activation during REM of brain sites implicated in attachment (...) and sexual processes; (4) effects of maternal deprivation on REM; (5) effects of REM deprivation on sexual behaviors; and (6) the REM-associated sexual excitation. To explain why we find associations among REM sleep, attachment, and adult reproductive strategies, we rely on recent extensions of parent-offspring conflict theory. Using data from recent findings on genomic imprinting, Haig (2000) and others suggest that paternally expressed genes are selected to promote growth of the developing fetus/child at the expense of the mother, while maternally expressed genes counter these effects. Because developmental REM facilitates attachment-related outcomes in the child, developmental REM may be regulated by paternally expressed genes. In that case, REM may have evolved to support the “aims” of paternal genes at the expense of maternal genes. (shrink)

Neuromarketing relies on Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology to gain insight into how customers react to marketing stimuli. Marketers spend about$750 billion annually on traditional marketing camping. They use traditional marketing research procedures such as Personal Depth Interviews, Surveys, Focused Group Discussions, and so on, which are frequently criticized for failing to extract true consumer preferences. On the other hand, Neuromarketing promises to overcome such constraints. This work proposes a machine learning framework for predicting consumers' purchase intention (PI) and affective (...) attitude (AA) from analyzing EEG signals. In this work, EEG signals are collected from 20 healthy participants while administering three advertising stimuli settings: product, endorsement, and promotion. After preprocessing, features are extracted in three domains (time, frequency, and time-frequency). Then, after selecting features using wrapper-based methods Recursive Feature Elimination, Support Vector Machine is used for categorizing positive and negative (AA and PI). The experimental results show that proposed framework achieves an accuracy of 84 and 87.00% for PI and AA ensuring the simulation of real-life results. In addition, AA and PI signals show N200 and N400 components when people tend to take decision after visualizing static advertisement. Moreover, negative AA signals shows more dispersion than positive AA signals. Furthermore, this work paves the way for implementing such a neuromarketing framework using consumer-grade EEG devices in a real-life setting. Therefore, it is evident that BCI-based neuromarketing technology can help brands and businesses effectively predict future consumer preferences. Hence, EEG-based neuromarketing technologies can assist brands and enterprizes in accurately forecasting future consumer preferences. (shrink)

In marketing, the use of visual-art-based designs on products or packaging crucially impacts consumers’ decision-making when purchasing. While visual art in product packaging should be designed to induce consumer’s favorable evaluations, it should not evoke excessive affective arousal, because this may lead to the depletion of consumer’s cognitive resources. Thus, consumers may use heuristic decision-making and commit an inadvertent mistake while purchasing. Most existing studies on visual arts in marketing have focused on preference using subjective evaluations. To address this, we (...) applied a neuroscientific measure, electroencephalogram to increase experimental validity. Two successive tasks were designed to examine the effects of affective arousal and affective valence, evoked by visual artwork, on the consecutive cognitive decision-making. In task 1, to evaluate the effect of visual art, EEG of two independent groups of people was measured when they viewed abstract artwork. The abstract art of neoplasticism group was showing Mondrian’s artwork, while the abstract art of expressionism group viewed Kandinsky’s artwork. The neoplasticism movement strove to eliminate emotion in art and expressionism to express the feelings of the artist. Building on Gallese’s embodied simulation theory, AbNP and AbEX artworks were expected to induce lower and higher affect, respectively. In task 2, we investigated how the induced affect differentially influenced a succeeding cognitive Stroop task. We anticipated that the AbEX group would deplete more cognitive resources than AbNP group, based on capacity limitation theory. Significantly stronger affect was induced in the AbEX group in task 1 than in the AbNP group, especially in affective arousal. In task 2, the AbEX group showed a faster reaction time and higher error rate in the Stroop task. According to our hypotheses, the higher affective arousal state of the AbEX group might deplete more cognitive resources during task 1 and result in poorer performance in task 2 because affect impacted their cognitive resources. This is the first study using neuroscientific measures to prove that high affective arousal induced by visual arts on packaging may induce heuristic decision-making in consumers, thereby advancing our understanding of neuromarketing. (shrink)

Already as infants humans are more fearful than our closest living primate relatives, the chimpanzees. Yet heightened fearfulness is mostly considered maladaptive, as it is thought to increase the risk of developing anxiety and depression. How can this human fear paradox be explained? The fearful ape hypothesis presented herein stipulates that, in the context of cooperative caregiving and provisioning unique to human great ape group life, heightened fearfulness was adaptive. This is because from early in ontogeny fearfulness expressed and perceived (...) enhanced care-based responding and provisioning from, while concurrently increasing cooperation with, mothers and others. This explanation is based on a synthesis of existing research with human infants and children, demonstrating a link between fearfulness, greater sensitivity to and accuracy in detecting fear in others, and enhanced levels of cooperative behaviors. These insights critically advance current evolutionary theories of human cooperation by adding an early-developing affective component to the human cooperative makeup. Moreover, the current proposal has important cultural, societal, and health implications, as it challenges the predominant view in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies that commonly construe fearfulness as a maladaptive trait, potentially ignoring its evolutionary adaptive functions. (shrink)

Several authors have hailed intuition as one of the defining features of expertise. In particular, while disagreeing on almost anything that touches on human cognition and artificial intelligence, Hubert Dreyfus and Herbert Simon agreed on this point. However, the highly influential theories of intuition they proposed differed in major ways, especially with respect to the role given to search and as to whether intuition is holistic or analytic. Both theories suffer from empirical weaknesses. In this paper, we show how, with (...) some additions, a recent theory of expert memory (the template theory) offers a coherent and wide-ranging explanation of intuition in expert behaviour. It is shown that the theory accounts for the key features of intuition: it explains the rapid onset of intuition and its perceptual nature, provides mechanisms for learning, incorporates processes showing how perception is linked to action and emotion, and how experts capture the entirety of a situation. In doing so, the new theory addresses the issues problematic for Dreyfus’s and Simon’s theories. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Recent results from two different studies show evidence of strong emotional engagement in moral dilemmas that require personal involvement or ethical problems that involve significant inter-personal issues. This empirical evidence for a connection between emotional engagement and moral or ethical choices is interesting because it is related to a fundamental survival mechanism rooted in human evolution. The results lead one to question when and how emotional engagement might occur in a professional ethical situation. However, the studies employed static dilemmas or (...) problems that offered only two choices whose outcome was certain or nearly so, whereas actual problems in professional ethics are dynamic and typically involve considerable uncertainty. The circumstances of three example cases suggest that increasing personal involvement and uncertainty could have been perceived as changes, threats, or opportunities and could therefore have elicited an emotional response as a way to ensure the reputation, integrity or success of oneself or a group to which one belongs. Such emotional engagement is only suggested and more studies and experiments are required to better characterize the role of emotional engagement in professional ethics. (shrink)

Throughout history, dance has maintained a critical presence across all human cultures, defying barriers of class, race, and status. How dance has synergistically co-evolved with humans has fueled a rich debate on the function of art and the essence of aesthetic experience, engaging numerous artists, historians, philosophers, and scientists. While dance shares many features with other art forms, one attribute unique to dance is that it is most commonly expressed with the human body. Because of this, social scientists and neuroscientists (...) are turning to dance and dancers to help answer questions of how the brain coordinates the body to perform complex, precise, and beautiful movements. In the present paper, we discuss how recent advances in neuroscientific methods provide the tools to advance our understanding of not only the cerebral phenomena associated with dance learning and observation but also the neural underpinnings of aesthetic appreciation associated with watching dance. We suggest that future work within the fields of dance neuroscience and neuroaesthetics have the potential to provide mutual benefits to both the scientific and artistic communities. (shrink)

Two models of modularity are presented in analysis of perceptual theories of emotion. Empirical tests for assessing whether either model is apt for emotion are suggested. The paper concludes by standing back and assessing the stakes of the issue.