It is not yet clear which response behavior requires self-regulatory effort in the moral dilemma task. Previous research has proposed that utilitarian responses require cognitive control, but subsequent studies have found inconsistencies with the empirical predictions of that hypothesis. In this paper we treat participants’ sensitivity to utilitarian gradients as a measure of performance. We confronted participants (N = 82) with a set of five dilemmas evoking a gradient of mean utilitarian responses in a 4-point scale and collected (...) data on heart rate variability and on utilitarian responses. We found positive correlations between tonic and phasic HRV and sensitivity to the utilitarian gradient in the high tonic group, but not in the low tonic group. Moreover, the low tonic group misplaced a scenario with a selfish incentive at the high end of the gradient. Results suggest that performance is represented by sensitivity correlated with HRV and accompanied with a reasonable placement of individual scenarios within the gradient. (shrink)

Art therapy encourages the use of art materials to express feelings and thoughts in a supportive environment. Art materials differ in fluidity and are postulated to thus differentially enhance emotional response (the more fluid the material the more emotion). Yet, to the best of our knowledge, this assumption has not been empirically tested. The current study aimed to examine the emotional and physiological responses to art making with different art materials. We were particularly interested in vagal activity, indexed by (...) heart rate variability (HRV), because of its association with numerous health related outcomes. In this study, fifty adults (mean age 33 ± 10.27 years, 52% males) participated in a repeated measures experiment, in which they were requested to draw with three art materials (order randomized) differing in their level of fluidity (pencil, oil-pastels and gouache paint) intermittent with periods of music. We measured the emotional response to art making with each material using a self-report measure and matrices of HRV using a wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) device. We calculated two indices of HRV, one indicative of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity, and one indicative of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity. Art making with gouache paint and oil pastels resulted in improved positive mood, while pencil did not. Art making explained approximately 35% of the variability in parasympathetic reactivity, which may indicate changes in emotional regulation processes during the art-making task. Yet, fluidity was not sufficient to explain the reaction to art-making. Surprisingly, the largest suppression of PNS and augmentation of the SNS occurred during art-making with oil-pastels and not with Gouache. Moreover, PNS and SNS reactivity to oil-pastels were related to emotional valance, which may point to emotional engagement. We can conclude that art-making with oil-pastels, first created in Japan in 1924 to increase self-expression of students, results in a unique emotional and physiological responses. These findings might be explained by the enhanced tactile experience of art-making with oil-pastels along with their relative fluidity, triggering an arousal pattern. Further studies that take the format and presentation of the materials as well as the content of the artwork, into account, are needed. (shrink)

BackgroundMental stress and imbalance of its two neural stress systems, the autonomic nervous system and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, are associated with chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome and erectile dysfunction. However, the comprehensive analyses of psychological stress and stress systems are under-investigated, particularly in CP/CPPS patients complicated by lower urinary tract symptoms and ED.Materials and methodsParticipants were 95 patients in CP/CPPS+ED group, 290 patients in CP/CPPS group, 124 patients in ED group and 52 healthy men in control group. The National Institutes (...) of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index, the International Index of Erectile Function-5 and the International Prostate Symptom Score were used for assessing the disease severity of CP/CPPS, LUTS and ED. Psychometric self-report questionnaires including the Beck Anxiety Inventory, Perceived Stress Scale, Type A Personality Test and Symptom Checklist 90 were completed for distress from physical symptoms. Twenty-five subjects per group were randomly selected for further investigating the changes of the HPA axis and ANS. Saliva samples were taken on 3 consecutive days at 8 specific times with strict reference to time of morning awakening for evaluation of free cortisol. Heart rate variability as marker of the ANS was measured using 24 h electrocardiography, and time-and frequency-domain variables were analyzed.ResultsThe BAI and SCL-90 scores were significantly higher in the CP/CPPS+ED, CP/CPPS and ED groups compared with the control group. The PSS scores of both groups with ED were significantly higher than the control group. Compared with the CP/CPPS group, the differences of PSS, SCL-90 and TAPT scores were statistically significant in CP/CPPS+ED patients. The IPSS scores were shown to have significantly positive correlations with BAI, PSS and SCL-90 in the CP/CPPS patients. However, in all subjects, the IIEF-5 scores were shown to have significantly negative correlations with BAI, PSS, SCL-90 and quality of life score in NIH-CPSI. Cortisol awakening response parameters and diurnal cortisol levels did not significantly vary between the four groups. Time-dependent parameters of HRV also did not differ significantly across groups. In the frequency domain analysis, low frequency was significantly lower in ED patients when compared with CP/CPPS+ED patients and healthy controls, high frequency power was significantly higher in healthy controls compared to patients with ED, CP/CPPS and CP/CPPS+ED, and the CP/CPPS+ED group had significantly higher LF/HF ratio than the control group.ConclusionCP/CPPS and ED patients score exceedingly high on most psychosocial variables. The symptom scores of LUTS and ED positively correlate with the severity of psychological stress. Our findings also suggest that the ANS sympathovagal imbalance is associated with ED and LUTS in CP/CPPS, whereas HPA axis activity is not. (shrink)

To date, we know very little about the effects of the differences in attachment classifications on the physiological correlates of stress regulation in adolescent age groups. The present study examined for the first time heart rate and heart rate variability during an attachment interview in adolescents. HR and HRV data were collected during a baseline assessment as well as during the administration of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System in a community-based sample of 56 adolescents. We (...) additionally used the Adult Attachment Interview in 50% of our sample to test the convergent validity. Adolescents with a secure attachment representation showed a higher HRV from baseline to the AAP interview compared to those with an insecure-dismissing and the unresolved group. A comparison between the two insecure attachment groups showed no significant difference related to HR and HRV. Cohen’s Kappa revealed an almost perfect agreement between the AAP and the AAI for the four-group classification. Our results indicate that adolescents with a secure attachment representation are more capable of dealing with attachment-related distress which is represented in higher HRV during an attachment interview. (shrink)

Callous unemotional (CU) traits (i.e., a lack of empathy/remorse and poverty of emotion) that co-occur with childhood antisocial behaviour are believed to be the developmental precursor to psychopathy in adulthood. An increasing volume of evidence supports two distinct variants of CU traits/psychopathy, known as primary and secondary. Primary variants are thought to show core deficits in emotional reactivity (e.g., attenuated autonomic activity), whereas secondary variants present with high levels of anxiety and this may be reflected in increased emotional sensitivity to (...) negative stimuli. -/- Aims: The current study is the first of its kind to examine the role of anxiety in modulating emotional processing as indexed by heart rate (HR) in incarcerated boys with CU traits. -/- Methods: HR was recorded continuously while 205 adolescents (aged 14 to 18 years) completed an emotional pictures dot-probe task. The task consisted of four blocks of 18 trials, beginning with a 500 ms central fixation cross, a 250 ms picture pair presentation (i.e., neutral, positive, negative valence), followed by a probe appearing in either the top or bottom picture location until response, and lastly a 2000 ms inter-trial interval recovery period. Four groups were formed on the basis of median-split scores on the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale and the Inventory of Callous Unemotional Traits, reflecting a primary variant (high CU/low anxiety), secondary variant (high CU/high anxiety), and two nonpsychopathic groups (low CU/high anxiety and low CU/low anxiety). -/- Results: The HR data indicated relative HR deceleration during the picture-probe period, regardless of group. Additionally, compared to all other groups, HR deceleration was greatest for the high CU/high anxiety secondary group and smallest for the high CU/low anxiety primary group during negative stimuli. Conclusions: This result is thought to reflect differences between CU/psychopathy variants in attentional orienting to distressing stimuli, consistent with theory. (shrink)

The application of machine learning algorithms to healthcare data can enhance patient care while also reducing healthcare worker cognitive load. These algorithms can be used to detect anomalous physiological readings, potentially leading to expedited emergency response or new knowledge about the development of a health condition. However, while there has been much research conducted in assessing the performance of anomaly detection algorithms on well-known public datasets, there is less conceptual comparison across unsupervised and supervised performance on physiological data. Moreover, while (...) heart rate data are both ubiquitous and noninvasive, there has been little research specifically for anomaly detection of this type of data. Considering that heart rate data are indicative of both potential health complications and an individual’s physical activity, this is a rich source of largely overlooked data. To this end, we employed and evaluated five machine learning algorithms, two of which are unsupervised and the remaining three supervised, in their ability to detect anomalies in heart rate data. These algorithms were then evaluated on real heart rate data. Findings supported the effectiveness of local outlier factor and random forests algorithms in the task of heart rate anomaly detection, as each model generalized well from their training on simulated heart rate data to real world heart rate data. Furthermore, results support that simulated data can help configure algorithms to a degree of performance when real labeled data are not available and that this type of learning might be especially helpful in initial deployment of a system without prior data. (shrink)

Epidemiological studies have confirmed that long-term exposure to road traffic noise can cause cardiovascular diseases, and when noise exposure reaches a certain level, the risk of related CDs significantly increases. Currently, a large number of Chinese residents are exposed to high noise exposure, which could greatly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, relevant studies have found that people with high noise sensitivity are more susceptible to noise. And it is necessary to pay more attention to the (...) high noise-sensitive people. This study investigated the acute physiological effect of different noise-sensitive groups by indoor-level noise stimulus experiments under laboratory conditions, by observing heart rate variability indicators, including standard deviation of NN intervals, low frequency/high frequency, and heart rate. The results showed that there was no significant difference in HRV between the high-sensitive group and the low-sensitive group at the physiological baseline and the different stimulating noise levels. Then, based on the theory of cumulative effect of noise proposed by WHO Regional Office for Europe, non-significant but observable differences between groups were further discussed. By analyzing differences of the variation trends and the within-group significant changes of SDNN and HR between the two groups, the results tended to show that the high-sensitive group is more affected by road traffic noise. In addition, the values of SDNN and HR showed observable between-group differences at 55 dB and 65 dB which corresponding to the SPL associated with a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease concerned by epidemiological studies. According to the cumulative effect theory, these differences in HRV caused by short-term noise stimulation may have the potential to produce physiological response and lead to between-groups differences in prevalence after long-term recurrent effect, and deserve attention and further research. (shrink)

Growing evidence suggests that natural environments – whether in outdoor or indoor settings – foster psychological health and physiological relaxation, indicated by increased wellbeing, reduced stress levels, and increased parasympathetic activity. Greater insight into differential psychological aspects modulating psychophysiological responses to nature-based relaxation videos could help understand modes of action and develop personalized relaxation interventions. We investigated heart rate variability as an indicator of autonomic regulation, specifically parasympathetic activity, in response to a 10-min video intervention in two (...) consecutive studies as well as heart rate. We hypothesized that a nature-based relaxation video elicits HRV increase and HR decrease, with response magnitude being affected by aspects of early life adversity and trait mindfulness. In Study 1, N = 60 participants watched a relaxation video intervention depicting different natural scenery. We analyzed changes in HR and respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a standard HRV measure, both based on 3-min segments from the experimental session, in multiple growth curve models. We found a decrease in HR and increase of RSA during the video intervention. Higher paternal care and lower trait mindfulness observing skills were associated with higher RSA values before but not during video exposure. In Study 2, N = 90 participants were assigned to three video conditions: natural scenery from Study 1, meditation video, or short clip from “The Lord of the Rings.” Again, HR decreased, and RSA increased during video segments, yet without expected group differences across different video types. We found higher parental care and lower parental overprotection to predict higher RSA at different times during the experiment. Interestingly, lower paternal overprotection predicted overall higher RSA. These results suggest a generic relaxation effect of video interventions on autonomic regulation that we discuss in light of different theories mapping restorative effects of natural environments. Further, psychological characteristics like aspects of early life adversity and trait mindfulness could contribute to individual differences in autonomic regulation. This study contributes to a better understanding of autonomic and psychological responses to relaxation videos. (shrink)

Audio description remains the cornerstone of accessibility for visually impaired audiences to all sorts of audiovisual content, including porn. Existing work points to the efficacy of audio description to guarantee immersion and emotional engagement, but evidence on its role in sexual arousal and engagement in porn is still scant. The present study takes on this challenge by comparing sighted and visually impaired participants’ experiences with porn in terms of their physiological response [i.e., cortisol and heart rate ] and (...) self-report measures of affect [Positive and Negative Affect Schedule ; Watson et al., 1988], anxiety [State-Trait Anxiety Inventory ; Spielberger et al., 1970], sexual reactivity and arousal [Sexual Inhibition/Sexual Excitation Scale ; Moyano and Sierra ; and the Ratings of Sexual Arousal ; Mosher ], and narrative engagement or transportation [The Transport Narrative Questionnaire, Green and Brock ]. 69 Spanish participants were allocated into three different groups: 25 sighted participants who watched and heard the porn scenes in their audio-visual version ; 22 sighted participants who listened to the audio described version without images ; and 22 visually impaired participants who also listened to the audio described version without images. Overall, results on physiological and self-report measures revealed no significant differences between groups or different versions of the clips. The analysis of cortisol reactivity to porn as the maximum increase or decrease in cortisol with respect to baseline values revealed no significant differences between the groups, but pointed to a higher percentage of non-responders than responders in the three groups, the highest being found in the ONCE group. As for participants’ cardiac response to the clips, no significant differences were found across the groups, with the highest HR levels being registered in the baseline phase. Self-report measures revealed significant between-group differences in negative affect. The ONCE group displayed the highest pre-task levels of negative affect and was the only group that showed a decrease in negative affect after exposure to the clips. Sighted and visually impaired participants reported to be moderately aroused and immersed in the films, regardless of exposure to AV or AD porn. In addition, correlations found between participants’ levels of self-report sexual arousal and transportation and post-task affect pointed to a positive relationship between exposure to porn and perceived levels of sexual arousal and affect. Results from the study reflected the efficacy of audio description in providing sighted and visually impaired audiences with a similar experience to that offered by original AV porn scenes. This study is exploratory but provides valid, initial groundwork for further research on the impact of audio description on porn reception. (shrink)

BackgroundRecurrent Major Depressive Disorder is one of the most disabling mental disorders in modern society. Prior research has shown that self-compassion protects against ruminative tendencies, a key feature of recurrent MDD. In addition, self-compassion has been found to be positively related to higher psychophysiological flexibility in young, healthy adults. To our knowledge, there is a lack of studies on how self-compassion relates to vmHRV in patients with recurrent MDD. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether higher self-compassion (...) would associate with lower ruminative tendencies and higher vmHRV in a sample of adults with recurrent MDD.MethodsWe included a sample of 63 patients between 20 and 71 years old with a history of three or more depressive episodes. They filled out the Self-Compassion Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, and Rumination Rating Scale. ECG was acquired while resting and the square root of the mean squared differences of successive RR interval values was calculated as measure of vmHRV.ResultsAs hypothesized, self-compassion was associated with lower ruminative tendencies. However, self-compassion was not associated with level of vmHRV. Several confounding variables were controlled for in the statistical analyses, and higher age predicted lower vmHRV across all statistical analyses.ConclusionThe results confirmed our hypothesis that higher self-compassion would be associated with lower ruminative tendencies in recurrent MDD. Contrary to our expectation, we did not find that the tendency to be more self-compassionate was associated with higher vmHRV. As such, higher self-compassion seems to relate with a lower tendency to ruminate about past mistakes and events but does not seem to relate to a flexible autonomic stress response. Other potential explanatory factors for lower vmHRV in recurrent MDD is suggested as focus for exploration in future studies. (shrink)

Theories of emotion propose that responses to emotional pictures can occur independently of whether or not people are aware of the picture content. Because evidence from dissociation paradigms is inconclusive, we manipulated picture awareness gradually and studied whether emotional responses varied with degree of awareness. Spider fearful and non-fearful participants viewed pictures of spiders and flowers at four levels of backward masking while electrodermal activity and heart rate were measured continuously. Recognition ratings confirmed that participants’ picture (...) awareness decreased with masking. Critically, effects of spider fear on emotion ratings and heart rate also decreased with masking. These findings suggest that effects of spider fear on emotion ratings and heart rate are closely related to picture awareness. (shrink)

Dynamic intra-individual variability (IIV) in cardiac vagal control across multiple situations is believed to contribute to adaptive cognition under stress; however, a dearth of research has empirically tested this notion. To this end, we examined 25 U.S. Army Soldiers (all male, Mean Age= 30.73, SD = 7.71) whose high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) was measured during a resting baseline and during three conditions of a shooting task (training, low stress, high stress). Response inhibition was measured as the correct (...) rejection of friendly targets during the low and high stress conditions. We tested the association between the standard deviation of HF-HRV across all four task conditions (IIV in vagal control) and changes in response inhibition between low and high stress. Greater differences in vagal control between conditions (larger IIV) were associated with higher tonic vagal control during rest, and stronger stress-related decreases in response inhibition. These results suggest that flexibility in vagal control is supported by tonic vagal control, but this flexibility also uniquely relates to adaptive cognition under stress. Findings are consistent with neurobehavioral and dynamical systems theories of vagal function. (shrink)

Physiological responses in futsal have not been studied together with temporal information about the players’ stay on the court. The aim of this study was to compare heart rate and blood lactate concentration responses between 1-H and 2-H considering the time of permanency of the players on the court at each substitution in a futsal match. HR was recorded during entire match and [La−] was analyzed after each substitution of seven players. %HRmean and [La−] mean did (...) not differ between 1-H and 2-H. Time in intensity zones of 50–100 %HRmax differed only in 60–70 %HRmax. HR coefficient of variation throughout the match was low and among the four outfield players on the court. Substitutions, time of permanence on the court, ratio between time in- and out-ratio on the court also were similar between 1-H and 2-H. Balancing the number of substitutions, and the In:Outcourt ratio of players in both halves of the match, playing lower time at 1-H, ~8 min for each participation in the match, made it possible to maintain intensity of the match in 2-H similar to the 1H. These results are a good guidance to coaches and for application in future studies. (shrink)

The current study used cross-modal oddball tasks to examine cardiac and behavioral responses to changing auditory and visual information. When instructed to press the same button for auditory and visual oddballs, auditory dominance was found with cross-modal presentation slowing down visual response times more than auditory response times (Experiment 1). When instructed to make separate responses to auditory and visual oddballs, visual dominance was found with cross-modal presentation decreasing auditory discrimination and participants also made more visual-based than auditory-based (...) errors on cross-modal trials (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 increased task demands while requiring a single button press and found evidence of auditory dominance, suggesting that it is unlikely that increased task demands can account for the reversal in Experiment 2. Auditory processing speed was the best predictor of auditory dominance, with auditory dominance being stronger in participants who were slower at processing the sounds, whereas, auditory and visual processing speed and baseline heart rate variability did not predict visual dominance. Examination of cardiac responses that were time-locked with stimulus onset showed cross-modal facilitation effects, with auditory and visual discrimination occurring earlier in the course of processing in the cross-modal condition than in the unimodal conditions. The current findings showing that response demand manipulations reversed modality dominance and that time-locked cardiac responses show cross-modal facilitation, not interference, suggest that auditory and visual dominance effects may both be occurring later in the course of processing, not from disrupted encoding. (shrink)

Test anxiety is a widespread and primarily detrimental emotion in learning and achievement settings. This research aimed to explore the autonomic nervous system response patterns of test-anxious individuals in response to evaluative stress. By presenting a standard interview task, an evaluative scenario was effectively induced. Heart rate variability, a biomarker that can accurately reflect the ANS activity, was used to reflect the physiological responses of 48 high test-anxious subjects and 49 low test-anxious subjects. Results indicate that: both (...) groups show a significantly increased emotional arousal in the evaluative scenario; high test-anxious individuals show a significantly decreased emotional pleasantness in the evaluative scenario, whereas low test-anxious individuals show no significant changes; both groups show a significantly increased low-frequency HRV; high test-anxious individuals show a significantly decreased high-frequency HRV and root mean square of successive heartbeat interval differences, whereas low test-anxious individuals remain stable. These findings suggest that high test-anxious individuals display an increased sympathetic nervous system activity and a decreased parasympathetic nervous system activity in response to evaluative stress, while low-anxious individuals display an increased SNS activity and a stable PNS activity in response to evaluative stress. (shrink)

Armed Forces personnel are exposed to traumatic experiences during their work; therefore, they are at risk of developing emotional difficulties such as post-traumatic stress disorder, following traumatic experiences. Despite evidence to suggest that self-compassion is effective in reducing the symptoms of PTSD, and greater levels of self-compassion are associated with enhanced resilience, self-compassion in armed forces personnel and armed forces veterans remains under-researched. As a result, it is not known if therapeutic approaches that use self-compassion interventions are an acceptable and (...) effective treatment for this population. Having previously shown that a one-off self-compassion exercise has temporary beneficial psychophysiological effects in non-clinical participants, we conducted this proof-of concept study to investigate whether this exercise is equally beneficial in veterans who had experienced deployment to a combat zone. Additionally, we examined if brief a self-compassion exercise can temporarily reduce hyperarousal symptoms and increase feelings of social connectedness. The current study also investigated the association between PTSD symptom severity, emotion regulation, and self-compassion in 56 veterans. All participants listened to a loving-kindness meditation for self-compassion and psychophysiological recordings were taken throughout. Psychophysiological effects were observed including heart-rate, skin conductance, and heart-rate variability to determine associations with PTSD and changes in response associated with the self-compassion induction. PTSD symptom severity, dispositional emotion regulation, and self-compassion were measured, and participants also completed state measures of hyperarousal and social connectedness before and after the LKM-S. The findings partially demonstrated that self-compassion can be elicited in a veteran population but there were considerable individual differences in psychophysiological responses. The findings are discussed in light of existing theories of PTSD and self-compassion and the implications of using self-compassion based psychological approaches with veterans. (shrink)

To foster understanding in the psychopathology of patients with anorexia nervosa at the psychological and physiological level, standardized experimental studies on reliable biomarkers are needed, especially due to the lack of disorder-specific samples. To this end, the autonomic nervous system response to a psychosocial stressor was investigated in n = 19 PAN, age, and gender-matched to n = 19 healthy controls. For this purpose, heart rate and heart rate variability parameters were assessed in a cross-sectional study (...) design under two experimental conditions: rest and stress. In addition, psychological indicators of stress were assessed. An 2 × 2 × 8 ANOVA demonstrated similar HR and HRV patterns between PAN and HC at rest. Under stress, PAN demonstrated a blunted HR [condition*time*group: F = 9.326, p = 0.000, η2 = 0.206] and an attenuated HRV response. Significant effects of stress appraisal and BMI on HRV-reactivity were revealed. SA on SDNN = Condition*time*SA = F = 2.676, p = 0.033, η2 = 0.073. BMI on LF/HF-Ratio = Condition*time*BMI = F = 3.339, p = 0.019, η2 = 0.164. Psychological indices suggested higher levels of chronic and appraised stress in PAN relative to HC. Additional analyses demonstrated that ED-symptoms are highly correlated with the latter constructs, as well as with psychological burden, but not with weight. Further, it was shown that abnormalities in reactivity persisted despite normalized ANS activity. Overall, we suggested that besides weight recovery, improvement in stress appraisal could be beneficial for cardiac health. In this light, a combination of therapy and biofeedback training may improve treatment outcomes and regulate stress reactivity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Graham McPhail, “Too Much Noise in the Classroom? Towards a Praxis of Conceptualization,” Philosophy of Music Education, 26, No. 2 (2018): 176–98.Patrick K. Freer“Are you all right, Sir?” asked the head trainer. I was on the treadmill at the gym, reading Graham McPhail’s “Too Much Noise in the Classroom?”1 as I worked up a sweat. Apparently I got so engaged by McPhail’s writing that my heart (...) rate spiked sufficiently to trigger a warning monitor at the front desk. I suspect not many others at the gym would agree that McPhail’s article qualifies as a pulse-racing, spine-tingling thriller. Still, I found the article to be revelatory in its content, scope, and style. In this brief essay, I will provide a few contextual and reflective comments regarding elements of his argument, state why I feel McPhail’s article is important, and describe two examples of how I plan to use his article as a framework for the consideration of philosophical concepts in music education.NOISE“Noise” is a curious word. The term has etymological origins in the Latin “nausea” with its connotations of discomfort and it gradually became associated [End Page 87] with “discord” or “quarrel” during the medieval period.2 The “noise” referenced in McPhail’s article title is akin to statistical noise in a research study: random data points that are discordant with the underlying facet being revealed or examined. McPhail likens this concept of noise to some current conversations about music education’s curricular and pedagogical foundations, specifically those centered on the aesthetic versus paraxial debates and with “political, emancipatory, and social justice aspirations.”3 McPhail writes that resultant pedagogies can unwittingly inhibit intended musical outcomes when “teachers decide not to ground knowledge in use in the systems of meaning from which they are derived.”4 These systems of meaning, McPhail offers, are concentrated in music’s “universal or context-independent concepts”5 from which arise the questions “what are these systems of meaning?” and “how can we make them meaningful for students?”6 These questions imply distinctions between epistemology and pedagogy and they necessitate consideration of a child’s cognitive growth in order for the answers to guide a teacher toward the development of meaningful educative processes in classrooms.7CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGYA central point of McPhail’s argument is that proponents of postmodern approaches to music education occasionally conflate pedagogy with curriculum. This can be seen in our professional journals, for example, when authors position music as the means to any number of activist ends rather than focusing on the teaching and learning of music through emancipatory principles.8 McPhail argues, correctly in my view, that music’s praxis should inform the various pedagogies we might employ when teaching music, while the conceptualization of music provides the core content of what it is we are to teach in the first place. That curricular dilemma, how versus what, is the crucible necessary to balance our conversations about equity and relevance in—and to—music education. It is possible to realize approaches to pedagogy that embrace vernacular musics, reflect social issues, and promote consciousness of action and reaction. These approaches should certainly be thought provoking, engaging, and relevant to the lives of students. But, without a defined curricular plan for guiding students to musical understandings that cumulatively build toward increasing levels of expertise, it is unlikely that the music education endeavor will be as efficient or empowering as it might otherwise be.In a 2014 essay, McPhail wrote that schools can offer the conceptual grounding that expands possibilities for students through “knowledge that is context-independent rather than context-dependent.”9 McPhail argues that this approach to teaching invokes principles of social justice itself as it provides formal knowledge [End Page 88] that students can then apply to informal contexts beyond the classroom. McPhail offers in his earlier work that “if the boundaries between informal knowledge and the more formal knowledge offered in the school are dissolved students may be at a loss to see what school can actually offer them.”10PEDAGOGY AND CHILD DEVELOPMENTMcPhail identifies music’s underlying, related concepts as one of three... (shrink)

ABSTRACTResearch on bilingualism and emotions has shown stronger emotional responses in the native language compared to a foreign language. We investigated the potential of purposeful second language use as a means of decreasing the experience of psychological distress. Native Swedish speakers read and answered questions about negative and neutral texts in their L1 and their L2 and were asked to rate their level of distress before or after the questions. The texts and associated questions were either written in (...) the same, or different languages. We found that within-language trials when the text was written in participants’ native language resulted in an increase of distress, whilst cross-language trials resulted in a decrease of distress. This implies that purposeful second language use can diminish levels of distress experienced following a negative event encoded in one's first language. (shrink)

The objective structured clinical examination is a method for assessment clinical competencies and skills. However, there is a need to improve its design in psychology programs. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of the different scenario's presentation order with different complexity/difficulty on the autonomic stress response of undergraduate students undergoing a Psychology OSCE. A total of 32 students of Psychology Bachelor's Degree were randomly selected and assigned to two OSCE scenarios of different complexity. While undergoing the (...) scenarios, participants heart rate variability was analyzed as an indicator of participant's stress autonomic response. Results indicate that the order of presentation of different complexity/difficulty scenarios affects the autonomic stress response of undergraduate Psychology students undergoing an OSCE. Students who underwent the high-complexity scenario first, reported significantly higher autonomic stress response than students who began the OSCE with the low-complexity scenario. Highly complex or difficult scenarios require good executive functions or cognitive control, very sensitive to autonomic stress responses. Therefore, OSCE design will benefit from placing easy scenarios first. (shrink)

Recently, social neurosciences have been interested in the investigation of neurophysiological responses related to the experience of positive emotions, such as gratitude, during social interactions. Specifically, the aim of the present research was to investigate whether gratitude related to gift exchange could favor cooperative behavior and bond construction, by improving behavioral and autonomic responsivity. At this regard, the autonomic synchronization and behavioral performance of 16 friends coupled in dyads were recorded during a joint attentional task. Gift exchange could be (...) occurred either at the beginning or in the middle of the task. For the recording of simultaneous autonomic activity [heart rate and skin conductance level ], a hyperscanning biofeedback paradigm was used. Intra-subjective analysis showed an increase in behavioral [accuracy ] and autonomic responses when the gift exchange took place at the beginning of the task rather than in the middle. Moreover, inter-subjective analysis revealed an increase in behavioral performance and greater autonomic synchronization of HR index. The present research, therefore, shows how gratitude and trust experienced following gift exchange can modify participants’ reactions by creating a shared cognition and the adoption of joint strategies. (shrink)

In biomedicine, practitioners often treat risk of disease as an illness in itself—suitable for monitoring and intervention. In some cases, increased diagnostics improve health outcomes by detecting problems early. Recently, however, science and technology studies scholars and medical practitioners have noted that the treatment of risk can also lead to unnecessary intervention and possible harm. Despite these findings, it is often hard to see changes in practice. Childbirth serves as an illuminating case because two models of health risk operate simultaneously—in (...) addition to the model valuing frequent intervention, there is another that seeks to mitigate risk by refusing medical surveillance. Based on interviews with birth providers and an analysis of professional documents, this article uses the case of fetal heart rate monitoring in American childbirth to demonstrate how some health providers are framing “intentional non-knowing” as a moral imperative to reduce medical risk. Studying the success and limitations of this “risk counterculture” illuminates how risk societies are changing in response to data suggesting that more information can have hurtful effects. This case integrates well-developed theories of knowledge production with less-developed theories of knowledge nonproduction, leading to a more fruitful discussion of the boundaries of responsible knowledge in risk management. (shrink)

BackgroundExercise is one of the effective ways to improve cognition. Different forms of exercises, such as aerobic exercise, resistance exercise, and coordination exercise, have different effects on the improvement of cognitive impairment. In recent years, exergames based on Non-Immersive Virtual Reality have been widely used in entertainment and have gradually been applied to clinical rehabilitation. However, the mechanism of NIVR-Exergames on improving motor cognition has not been clarified. Therefore, the aim of this study is to find whether NIVR-Exergames result in (...) a better neural response mechanism to improve the area of the cerebral cortex related to motor cognition under functional near-infrared spectroscopy dynamic monitoring in comparison with resistance exercise.MethodsA cross-over study design was adopted in this study, and 15 healthy young subjects were randomly divided into group A and group B according to a computerized digital table method. Task 1 was an NIVR-Exergame task, and Task 2 was resistance band stretching. Group A first performed Task 1, rested for 30 min, and then performed Task 2. Group B had the reverse order. The fNIRS test was synchronized in real time during exercise tasks, and heart rate measurements, blood pressure measurements, and 2-back task synchronization fNIRS tests were performed at baseline, Post-task 1, and Post-task 2. The primary outcomes were beta values from the general linear model in different regions of interest, and the secondary outcomes were heart rate, blood pressure, reaction time of 2-back, and accuracy rate of 2-back.ResultsThe activation differences of Task 1 and Task 2 in the right premotor cortex and the left PMC were statistically significant. There were statistically significant differences in the activation of the right supplementary motor area, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left and right PMC between baseline and Post-task 1. The differences in systolic pressure between the two groups at three time points among women were statistically significant.ConclusionIn this study, we found that NIVR-Exergames combined with motor and challenging cognitive tasks can promote the activation of SMA, PMC and DLPFC in healthy young people compared with resistance exercise alone, providing compelling preliminary evidence of the power for the rehabilitation of motor and cognitive function in patients with central nervous system diseases. (shrink)