Physiological audience synchrony in classical concerts linked with listeners' experiences and attitudes.

A series of eleven public concerts (staging chamber music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Brett Dean, Johannes Brahms) was organized with the goal to analyze physiological synchronies within the audiences and associations of synchrony with psychological variables. We hypothesized that the music would induce synchronized physiology, which would be linked to participants' aesthetic experiences, affect, and personality traits. Physiological measures (cardiac, electrodermal, respiration) of 695 participants were recorded during presentations.

Exploring the role of emotions and conversation content in interpersonal synchrony: A case study of a couple therapy session.

Objective: This exploratory study investigated the association between interpersonal movement and physiological synchronies, emotional processing, and the conversational structure of a couple therapy session using a multimodal, mixed-method approach.

Method: The video recordings of a couple therapy session, in which the participants' electrodermal activity was recorded, were analyzed. The session was divided into topical episodes, a qualitative analysis was conducted on each topical episode's emotional aspects, conversational structure and content.

The pairwise approximate spatiotemporal symmetry algorithm: A method for segmenting time series pairs.

Methods that measure the association between two intensively measured time series are of interest to researchers studying the symmetry of behaviors during social interaction. Such methods have historically focused on aggregating the amount of symmetry across all measurement occasions. However, it is rarely expected that symmetry is present at all measurement occasions.

Electrodermal and respiratory synchrony in couple therapy in distinct therapeutic subsystems and reflection periods.

Synchrony in the multi-person context of systemic therapy is a complex and understudied phenomenon. We analyzed respiratory and electrodermal synchronies within a couple therapy system with two therapists to determine whether dyadic subsystems between each client and therapist synchronized differently. We also studied synchrony in reflection periods, in which the therapists discussed the therapy process with clients listening.

Audience synchronies in live concerts illustrate the embodiment of music experience.

A study of 132 audience members of three classical public concerts (all three staged the same chamber music pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven, Brett Dean, and Johannes Brahms) had the goal of analyzing the physiological and motor responses of audiences. It was assumed that the music would induce synchronous physiology and movement in listeners (induction synchrony). In addition to hypothesizing that such synchronies would be present, we expected that they were linked to participants' aesthetic experiences, their affect and personality traits, which were assessed by questionnaires before and after the concerts.

The diurnal course of salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase on workdays and leisure days in teachers and the role of social isolation and neuroticism.

Teachers are among the occupational groups with the highest sick leave rates due to workplace stress and burnout symptoms. A substantial body of research has suggested social isolation and neuroticism to be related to physiological stress activity. However, the relationship between such characteristics and stress experiences has rarely been studied in conjunction with physiological stress indicators in the teachers' natural settings.

Growth curves of common factors in psychotherapy: Multilevel growth modelling and outcome analysis.

Objective: A large body of literature discusses change mechanisms underlying psychotherapy with an emphasis on common factors. The present study examined how different comprehensive common factors change over the course of therapy and whether this change was associated with clinical outcome at discharge.

Method: Three hundred forty-eight adults (mean age = 32.

A Complexity Science Account of Humor.

A common assumption of psychological theories of humor is that experienced funniness results from an incongruity between stimuli provided by a verbal joke or visual pun, followed by a sudden, surprising resolution of incongruity. In the perspective of complexity science, this characteristic incongruity-resolution sequence is modeled by a phase transition, where an initial attractor-like script, suggested by the initial joke information, is suddenly destructed, and in the course of resolution replaced by a less probable novel script. The transition from the initial to the enforced final script was modeled as a succession of two attractors with different minimum potentials, during which free energy becomes available to the joke recipient.

Association between workaholism, vital exhaustion, and hair cortisol concentrations among teachers: A longitudinal study testing the moderation effect of neuroticism.

Introduction: Workaholism in teachers is characterized by the willingness to work until exhausted and may be associated with various adverse health outcomes as well as high economic costs. The present study examines the association between workaholism, vital exhaustion (VE), and hair cortisol concentration (HCC) as indicators of chronic stress. In addition, this study explores the moderating role of the personality trait neuroticism on the relationship between workaholism and chronic stress indicators, i.

Complexity Science in Human Change: Research, Models, Clinical Applications.

Complexity and entropy prevail in human behavior and social interaction because the systems underlying behavior and interaction are, without a doubt, highly complex [...

Dyadic nonverbal synchrony during pre and post music therapy interventions and its relationship to self-reported therapy readiness.

Nonverbal interpersonal synchronization has been established as an important factor in therapeutic relationships, and the differentiation of who leads the interaction appears to provide further important information. We investigated nonverbal synchrony - quantified as the coordination of body movement between patient and therapist. This was observed in music therapy dyads, while engaged in verbal interaction before and after a music intervention in the session.

Cross-Correlation- and Entropy-Based Measures of Movement Synchrony: Non-Convergence of Measures Leads to Different Associations with Depressive Symptoms.

Background: Several algorithms have been proposed to quantify synchronization. However, little is known about their convergent and predictive validity.

Methods: The sample included 30 persons who completed a manualized interview focusing on psychosomatic symptoms.

Longitudinal Associations Between Core Self-Evaluation, Vital Exhaustion and Hair Cortisol in Teachers and the Mediating Effects of Resignation Tendency.

Work-related stress appears to be especially high among teachers. However, most research on teacher stress relies exclusively on teachers' self-reports. Little is known about the physiological correlates of affective stress in teachers.

Long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy in a face-to-face versus videoconferencing setting: A single case study.

Objective: Due to the coronavirus pandemic and crisis, psychotherapists around the world were forced to switch to video- or tele-based treatments overnight. To date, only a few studies on the effectiveness of video-based psychodynamic psychotherapy via the Internet exist. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to examine symptom improvement, therapeutic relationship, nonverbal synchrony processes, and intersession processes within a systematic single case design and compare face-to-face to video-based approaches in long-term psychodynamic-oriented psychotherapy.

Affect-Logic, Embodiment, Synergetics, and the Free Energy Principle: New Approaches to the Understanding and Treatment of Schizophrenia.

This theoretical paper explores the affect-logic approach to schizophrenia in light of the general complexity theories of cognition: embodied cognition, Haken's synergetics, and Friston's free energy principle. According to affect-logic, the mental apparatus is an embodied system open to its environment, driven by bioenergetic inputs of emotions. Emotions are rooted in goal-directed embodied states selected by evolutionary pressure for coping with specific situations such as fight, flight, attachment, and others.

[Empirical Conceptualization of Common Factors in Psychotherapy: Factor Structure of the WEB].

Objective: Our goal was to explore the association pattern of 26 common factors and thereby contribute conceptually to the debate on change mechanisms in psychotherapy with an empirically derived conception of superordinate common factors (global common factors). In addition, we tested reliability and validity aspects of a new instrument to assess common factors.

Method: The activation of common factors during in- and outpatient psychotherapy was assessed in 502 patients using a weekly process measure ('Wochenerfahrungsbogen', WEB).

Nonverbal Synchrony in Couple Therapy Linked to Clients' Well-Being and the Therapeutic Alliance.

Nonverbal synchrony between individuals has a robust relation to the positive aspects of relationships. In psychotherapy, where talking is the cure, nonverbal synchrony has been related to a positive outcome of therapy and to a stronger therapeutic alliance between therapist and client in dyadic settings. Only a few studies have focused on nonverbal synchrony in multi-actor therapy conversations.

Beyond Dyadic Coupling: The Method of Multivariate Surrogate Synchrony (mv-SUSY).

Measuring interpersonal synchrony is a promising approach to assess the complexity of social interaction, which however has been mostly limited to dyads. In this study, we introduce multivariate Surrogate Synchrony (mv-SUSY) to extend the current set of computational methods. Methods: mv-SUSY was applied to eight datasets consisting of 10 time series each, all with n = 9600 observations.

Patients' style of emotional processing moderates the impact of common factors in psychotherapy.

This study examined how patient characteristics concerning processing of emotions interact with common factors in psychotherapy. We focused on common factors of emotional processing in psychotherapy with regard to depression outcome. A total of 93 psychiatric outpatients were included.

Brief Report: Specificity of Interpersonal Synchrony Deficits to Autism Spectrum Disorder and Its Potential for Digitally Assisted Diagnostics.

Reliably diagnosing autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in adulthood poses a challenge to clinicians due to the absence of specific diagnostic markers. This study investigated the potential of interpersonal synchrony (IPS), which has been found to be reduced in ASD, to augment the diagnostic process. IPS was objectively assessed in videos of diagnostic interviews in a representative referral population from two specialized autism outpatient clinics.

Eye Synchrony: A Method to Capture Mutual and Joint Attention in Social Eye Movements.

Gaze behavior represents a complex phenomenon in social inter-action. We focus here on dyadic face-to-face interaction during naturally occurring verbal exchanges, where shared attention can be operationalized by joint gazes and eye contact. A multi-step methodology for the analysis of eye synchrony is presented, exemplified by a single case.

When our hearts beat together: Cardiac synchrony as an entry point to understand dyadic co-regulation in couples.

The degree to which romantic partners' autonomic responses are coordinated, represented by their pattern of physiological synchrony, seems to capture important aspects of the reciprocal influence and co-regulation between spouses. In this study, we analyzed couple's cardiac synchrony as measured by heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). A sample of 27 couples (N = 54) performed a structured interaction task in the lab where they discussed positive and negative aspects of the relationship.