Cultural differences in the use of acoustic cues for musical emotion experience.

Does music penetrate cultural differences with its ability to evoke emotion? The ragas of Hindustani music are specific sequences of notes that elicit various emotions: happy, romantic, devotion, calm, angry, longing, tension and sad. They can be presented in two modes, alaap and gat, which differ in rhythm, but match in tonality. Participants from Indian and Non-Indian cultures (N = 144 and 112, respectively) rated twenty-four pieces of Hindustani ragas on eight dimensions of emotion, in a free response task.

Wired for musical rhythm? A diffusion MRI-based study of individual differences in music perception.

Music perceptual abilities are subjective and exhibit high inter-individual variability. Twenty-nine participants with varying degrees of musical training were tested for musical perception ability with the Profile of Music Perception Skills (PROMS) and brain structural measures obtained via diffusion tensor imaging. Controlling for the period of training, TBSS results showed that individuals with better musical perception abilities showed increased deviations from linear anisotropy in the corpus callosum.

Music and Emotion-A Case for North Indian Classical Music.

The of North Indian Classical Music (NICM) have been historically known to elicit emotions. Recently, Mathur et al. (2015) provided empirical support for these historical assumptions, that distinct elicit distinct emotional responses.

Breadth-Based Models of Women's Underrepresentation in STEM Fields: An Integrative Commentary on Schmidt (2011) and Nye et al. (2012).

Relative strength of math and verbal abilities and interests drive science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) career choices more than absolute math ability alone. Having one dominant aptitude (e.g.

Autistic trait interactions underlie sex-dependent facial recognition abilities in the normal population.

Autistic face processing difficulties are either uniquely social or due to a piecemeal cognitive "style." Co-morbidity of social deficits and piecemeal cognition in autism makes teasing apart these accounts difficult. These traits vary normally, and are more separable in the general population, suggesting another way to compare accounts.

INCREASING ACHIEVEMENT AND HIGHER-EDUCATION REPRESENTATION OF UNDER-REPRESENTED GROUPS IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATHEMATICS FIELDS: A REVIEW OF CURRENT K-12 INTERVENTION PROGRAMS.

The under-representation of women and ethnic minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and professions has resulted in a loss of human capital for the US scientific workforce and spurred the development of myriad STEM educational intervention programs. Increased allocation of resources to such programs begs for a critical, prescriptive, evidence-based review that will enable researchers to develop optimal interventions and administrators to maximize investments. We begin by providing a theoretical backdrop for K-12 STEM programs by reviewing current data on under-representation and developmental research describing individual-level social factors undergirding these data.

Can Sex Differences in Science Be Tied to the Long Reach of Prenatal Hormones? Brain Organization Theory, Digit Ratio (2D/4D), and Sex Differences in Preferences and Cognition.

Brain organization theory posits a cascade of physiological and behavioral changes initiated and shaped by prenatal hormones. Recently, this theory has been associated with outcomes including gendered toy preference, 2D/4D digit ratio, personality characteristics, sexual orientation, and cognitive profile (spatial, verbal, and mathematical abilities). We examine the evidence for this claim, focusing on 2D/4D and its putative role as a biomarker for organizational features that influence cognitive abilities/interests predisposing males toward mathematically and spatially intensive careers.

More than maths and mindreading: sex differences in empathizing/systemizing covariance.

Empathizing-Systemizing theory posits a continuum of cognitive traits extending from autism into normal cognitive variation. Covariance data on empathizing and systemizing traits have alternately suggested inversely dependent, independent, and sex-dependent (one sex dependent, the other independent) structures. A total of 144 normal undergraduates (65 men, 79 women) completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes, Embedded Figures, and Benton face recognition tests, the Autism Spectrum Quotient, and measures of digit length ratio and field of study; some also completed tests of motion coherence threshold (64) and go/no-go motor inhibition (128).