Negative emotions in art reception: Refining theoretical assumptions and adding variables to the Distancing-Embracing model.

While covering all commentaries, our response specifically focuses on the following issues: How can the hypothesis of emotional distancing (qua art framing) be compatible with stipulating high levels of felt negative emotions in art reception? Which concept of altogether pleasurable mixed emotions does our model involve? Can mechanisms of predictive coding, social sharing, and immersion enhance the power of our model?

Shifting the set of stimulus selection when switching between tasks.

Switching between tasks associated with different requirements of stimulus selection may suffer interference from persisting attentional settings or processes of reconfiguration, possibly constituting a source of task switch costs (i.e., impaired performance in task switch trials compared to task repetition trials).

Active avoidance and attentive freezing in the face of approaching threat.

Defensive behaviors in animals and humans vary dynamically with increasing proximity of a threat and depending upon the behavioral repertoire at hand. The current study investigated physiological and behavioral adjustments and associated brain activation when participants were exposed to dynamically approaching threat that was either inevitable or could be avoided by motor action. When the approaching threat was inevitable, attentive freezing was observed as indicated by fear bradycardia, startle potentiation, and a dynamic increase in activation of the anterior insula and the periaqueductal grey.

Short-Term-Effectiveness of a Relationship Education Program for Distressed Military Couples, in the Context of Foreign Assignments for the German Armed Forces. Preliminary Findings From a Randomized Controlled Study.

This study examines the short-term effectiveness of a relationship education program designed for military couples. Distressed couples were randomly placed in either a wait-list control group or an intervention group. We conducted training sessions before a 3-month foreign assignment, and refresher courses approximately 6-week post-assignment.

Reluctance in international politics: A conceptualization.

Contemporary rising powers have often pursued a hesitant and ambiguous foreign-policy and have belied the expectations of potential followers and established powers who would want them to engage more actively in global and regional governance. The existing analytical toolbox of International Relations does not offer suitable concepts to make sense of the widespread phenomenon of states that pursue hesitant, inconsistent courses of action and do not bring to bear their power resources to coherently manage international crises that potentially affect them. A notion that is frequently employed to describe this peculiar type of foreign policy is that of 'reluctance', but this concept has not been systematically defined, discussed or theorized.

The emotional power of poetry: neural circuitry, psychophysiology and compositional principles.

It is a common experience-and well established experimentally-that music can engage us emotionally in a compelling manner. The mechanisms underlying these experiences are receiving increasing scrutiny. However, the extent to which other domains of aesthetic experience can similarly elicit strong emotions is unknown.

Cognitive functioning and emotion processing in breast cancer survivors and controls: An ERP pilot study.

Diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer is a very emotionally aversive and stressful life event, which can lead to impaired cognitive functioning and mental health. Breast cancer survivors responding with repressive emotion regulation strategies often show less adaptive coping and adverse outcomes. We investigated cognitive functioning and neural correlates of emotion processing using ERPs.

Physical and psychosocial aspects of adolescent and young adults after allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation: results from a prospective multicenter trial.

Purpose: Allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (alloHSCT) is physically and psychosocially demanding. Among transplant recipients, adolescent and young adults (AYA) represent a special group, as disease occurs early in life, resulting in the prospect of long survival time and high burden of alloHSCT sequelae. However, data focusing on AYA undergoing alloHSCT are rare.

Sleep quality of German soldiers before, during and after deployment in Afghanistan-a prospective study.

In this prospective study, subjective sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness prior to, during and after deployment of German soldiers in Afghanistan were examined. Sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; PSQI) and daytime sleepiness (Epworth Sleepiness Scale; ESS) were assessed in 118 soldiers of the German army, who were deployed in Afghanistan for 6 months (deployment group: DG) and in 146 soldiers of a non-deployed control group (CG) at baseline. Results of the longitudinal analysis are reported, based on assessments conducted prior to, during the deployment and afterwards in the DG, and in the CG in parallel.

Stability and Variability in Aesthetic Experience: A Review.

Based on psychophysics' pragmatic dualism, we trace the cognitive neuroscience of stability and variability in aesthetic experience. With regard to different domains of aesthetic processing, we touch upon the relevance of cognitive schemata for aesthetic preference. Attitudes and preferences are explored in detail.

Tears Falling on Goosebumps: Co-occurrence of Emotional Lacrimation and Emotional Piloerection Indicates a Psychophysiological Climax in Emotional Arousal.

This psychophysiological study is the first to examine the relationship between emotional tears and emotional piloerection (i.e., goosebumps).

The Distancing-Embracing model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception.

Why are negative emotions so central in art reception far beyond tragedy? Revisiting classical aesthetics in the light of recent psychological research, we present a novel model to explain this much discussed (apparent) paradox. We argue that negative emotions are an important resource for the arts in general, rather than a special license for exceptional art forms only. The underlying rationale is that negative emotions have been shown to be particularly powerful in securing attention, intense emotional involvement, and high memorability, and hence is precisely what artworks strive for.

Cultural and Species Differences in Gazing Patterns for Marked and Decorated Objects: A Comparative Eye-Tracking Study.

Objects from the Middle Paleolithic period colored with ochre and marked with incisions represent the beginning of non-utilitarian object manipulation in different species of the genus. To investigate the visual effects caused by these markings, we compared humans who have different cultural backgrounds (Namibian hunter-gatherers and German city dwellers) to one species of non-human great apes (orangutans) with respect to their perceptions of markings on objects. We used eye-tracking to analyze their fixation patterns and the durations of their fixations on marked and unmarked stones and sticks.

Changes in room acoustics elicit a Mismatch Negativity in the absence of overall interaural intensity differences.

Changes in room acoustics provide important clues about the environment of sound source-perceiver systems, for example, by indicating changes in the reflecting characteristics of surrounding objects. To study the detection of auditory irregularities brought about by a change in room acoustics, a passive oddball protocol with participants watching a movie was applied in this study. Acoustic stimuli were presented via headphones.

Strategic control over extent and timing of distractor-based response activation.

In choice reaction time (RT) tasks, performance is often influenced by the presence of nominally irrelevant stimuli, referred to as distractors. Recent research provided evidence that distractor processing can be adjusted to the utility of the distractors: Distractors predictive of the upcoming target/response were more attended to and also elicited stronger motor responses. In an event-related potential (ERP) study, we investigated whether not only the extent of distractor processing (as suggested by these previous results), but also the timing of distractor-based response activation is subject to strategic control.

When neutral turns significant: brain dynamics of rapidly formed associations between neutral stimuli and emotional contexts.

The ability to associate neutral stimuli with motivationally relevant outcomes is an important survival strategy. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate brain dynamics of associative emotional learning when participants were confronted with multiple heterogeneous information. Participants viewed 144 different objects in the context of 144 different emotional and neutral background scenes.

Differences in the Visual Perception of Symmetric Patterns in Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus abelii) and Two Human Cultural Groups: A Comparative Eye-Tracking Study.

Symmetric structures are of importance in relation to aesthetic preference. To investigate whether the preference for symmetric patterns is unique to humans, independent of their cultural background, we compared two human populations with distinct cultural backgrounds (Namibian hunter-gatherers and German town dwellers) with one species of non-human great apes (Orangutans) in their viewing behavior regarding symmetric and asymmetric patterns in two levels of complexity. In addition, the human participants were asked to give their aesthetic evaluation of a subset of the presented patterns.

It's Sad but I Like It: The Neural Dissociation Between Musical Emotions and Liking in Experts and Laypersons.

Emotion-related areas of the brain, such as the medial frontal cortices, amygdala, and striatum, are activated during listening to sad or happy music as well as during listening to pleasurable music. Indeed, in music, like in other arts, sad and happy emotions might co-exist and be distinct from emotions of pleasure or enjoyment. Here we aimed at discerning the neural correlates of sadness or happiness in music as opposed those related to musical enjoyment.

On the Role of Mentalizing Processes in Aesthetic Appreciation: An ERP Study.

We used event-related brain potentials to explore the impact of mental perspective taking on processes of aesthetic appreciation of visual art. Participants (non-experts) were first presented with information about the life and attitudes of a fictitious artist. Subsequently, they were cued trial-wise to make an aesthetic judgment regarding an image depicting a piece of abstract art either from their own perspective or from the imagined perspective of the fictitious artist [i.

Binding neutral information to emotional contexts: Brain dynamics of long-term recognition memory.

There is abundant evidence in memory research that emotional stimuli are better remembered than neutral stimuli. However, effects of an emotionally charged context on memory for associated neutral elements is also important, particularly in trauma and stress-related disorders, where strong memories are often activated by neutral cues due to their emotional associations. In the present study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate long-term recognition memory (1-week delay) for neutral objects that had been paired with emotionally arousing or neutral scenes during encoding.

Gaze Duration Biases for Colours in Combination with Dissonant and Consonant Sounds: A Comparative Eye-Tracking Study with Orangutans.

Research on colour preferences in humans and non-human primates suggests similar patterns of biases for and avoidance of specific colours, indicating that these colours are connected to a psychological reaction. Similarly, in the acoustic domain, approach reactions to consonant sounds (considered as positive) and avoidance reactions to dissonant sounds (considered as negative) have been found in human adults and children, and it has been demonstrated that non-human primates are able to discriminate between consonant and dissonant sounds. Yet it remains unclear whether the visual and acoustic approach-avoidance patterns remain consistent when both types of stimuli are combined, how they relate to and influence each other, and whether these are similar for humans and other primates.

Towards a psychological construct of being moved.

The emotional state of being moved, though frequently referred to in both classical rhetoric and current language use, is far from established as a well-defined psychological construct. In a series of three studies, we investigated eliciting scenarios, emotional ingredients, appraisal patterns, feeling qualities, and the affective signature of being moved and related emotional states. The great majority of the eliciting scenarios can be assigned to significant relationship and critical life events (especially death, birth, marriage, separation, and reunion).

Evidence for the role of German final devoicing in pre-attentive speech processing: a mismatch negativity study.

Results of a mismatch negativity experiment are reported in which the pre-attentive relevance of the German phonological alternation of final devoicing (FD) is shown in two ways. The experiment employs pseudowords. (1) A deviant [vus] paired with standard /vuzə/ did not show a mismatch effect for the voicing change in /z/ versus [s] because the two can be related by FD.

Utility-based early modulation of processing distracting stimulus information.

Humans are selective information processors who efficiently prevent goal-inappropriate stimulus information to gain control over their actions. Nonetheless, stimuli, which are both unnecessary for solving a current task and liable to cue an incorrect response (i.e.