scholarly journals Your pleasure is mine; when people share a musical emotional experience during a live music performance in a concert hall

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibault Chabin ◽  
Damien Gabriel ◽  
Alexandre Comte ◽  
Emmanuel Haffen ◽  
Thierry Moulin ◽  
...  

AbstractOver the years, several publications have proposed that musical sound could be an ancestral emotional way of communication, thus positing an ancestral biological function for music. Understanding how musical emotions, and the pleasure derived from music regardless of the musical valence, can be shared between individuals is a fascinating question, and investigating it can shed light on the function of musical reward. Is the pleasure felt at the individual level transmitted on a collective level? And if so, how? We investigated these questions in a natural setting during an international competition for orchestra conductors. Participants (n=15) used a dedicated smartphone app to report their subjective emotional experiences in real time during a concert. We recorded participant’s electrodermal activity (EDA) and cerebral activity with electroencephalography (EEG). The overall behavioral real time ratings suggest a possible social influence on the reported and felt pleasure. The physically closer the participants, the more similar their reported pleasure. We estimated the inter-individual cerebral coherence, which indicates the degree of mutual cerebral information between pairs of participants in the frequency domain. The results show that when people simultaneously reported either high or low pleasure, their cerebral activities were closer than for simultaneous neutral pleasure reports. Participants’ skin conductance levels were also more coupled when reporting higher emotional degrees simultaneously. More importantly, the participants who were physically closer had higher cerebral coherence, but only when they simultaneously reported intense pleasure. We propose that mechanisms of emotional contagion and/or emotional resonance could explain why a form of ‘emotional connecting force’ could arise between people.

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Shoval ◽  
Yonatan Schvimer ◽  
Maya Tamir

The examination of tourists’ experiences is an essential subject in tourism scholarship. This study presents novel methods by which spatio-temporal data can be combined with physiological measures of emotion and semantic contextual information in order to obtain a comprehensive and integrative understanding of tourists’ experience in time and space. Four data collection techniques were combined and applied to a sample of 68 tourists in Jerusalem: high-resolution locational data, real-time surveying techniques using the experience sampling method, physiological measures of emotion (electrodermal activity), and traditional surveying techniques. We present methods for using these techniques in exploring data on the individual level, comparing pairs of individuals, and examining a sample, providing insight both on the individual’s personal experience and, more broadly, on the emotional characteristics of locations and tourist attractions in a city. Theoretical and methodological implications as well as the limitations of these techniques are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariano Calvo Martín ◽  
Stamatios C. Nicolis ◽  
Isaac Planas-Sitjà ◽  
Jean-Christophe de Biseau ◽  
Jean-Louis Deneubourg

AbstractCockroaches, like most social arthropods, are led to choose collectively among different alternative resting places. These decisions are modulated by different factors, such as environmental conditions (temperature, relative humidity) and sociality (groups size, nature of communications). The aim of this study is to establish the interplay between environmental conditions and the modulation of the interactions between individuals within a group leading to an inversion of preferences. We show that the preferences of isolated cockroaches and groups of 16 individuals, on the selection of the relative humidity of a shelter are inversed and shed light on the mechanisms involved. We suggest that the relative humidity has a multi-level influence on cockroaches, manifested as an attractant effect at the individual level and as a negative effect at the group level, modulating the interactions.


Author(s):  
Greger Henriksson ◽  
Minna Räsänen

This chapter is based on the assumption that keeping the number and length of business and commuting trips at reasonable levels could contribute to reaching targets of environmental sustainability. The authors highlight a couple of options for reducing or avoiding business trips and commuting through workplace location or improved use of communications. They present case studies concerning travel and communications, carried out by using diaries and interviews. They also present relevant literature on social practices and sustainability goals in relation to use of ICT. The aim is to shed light on variation in the use of travel and communications on an individual level in work life. The case studies illustrate that such variation is mainly due to the concrete practices involved in execution of professional duties and roles. Duties that involve a clearly defined end result or product being delivered regularly by the member of staff are correlated to clearly defined needs for communications. Less clearly defined end results of the work duties seem to make it harder for the individual to plan and perform communication and travel in a more energy saving way. The difference in professional duties can thus be expressed in terms of clarity and maturity. Another factor that affect who can replace travel with ICTs is relations of power, e.g., when a purchaser dictates the terms for a subcontractor concerning how and where to “deliver” his working time, service or product. The importance of clarity, maturity and power aspects means that professional practices need to be studied at a detailed level to find out who could substitute ICTs for travel and how this could be done.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiying Zhao ◽  
Shuxia Yao ◽  
Keshuang Li ◽  
Cornelia Sindermann ◽  
Feng Zhou ◽  
...  

AbstractDeficient emotion regulation and exaggerated anxiety represent a major transdiagnostic psychopathological marker. On the neural level these deficits have been closely linked to impaired, yet treatment-sensitive, prefrontal regulatory control over the amygdala. Gaining direct control over these pathways could therefore provide an innovative and promising strategy to regulate exaggerated anxiety. To this end the current proof-of-concept study evaluated the feasibility, functional relevance and maintenance of a novel connectivity-informed real-time fMRI neurofeedback training. In a randomized within-subject sham-controlled design high anxious subjects (n = 26) underwent real-time fMRI-guided training to enhance connectivity between the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and the amygdala (target pathway) during threat exposure. Maintenance of regulatory control was assessed after three days and in the absence of feedback. Training-induced changes in functional connectivity of the target pathway and anxiety ratings served as primary outcomes. Training of the target, yet not the sham-control, pathway significantly increased amygdala-vlPFC connectivity and decreased subjective anxiety levels. On the individual level stronger connectivity increases were significantly associated with anxiety reduction. At follow-up, volitional control over the target pathway and decreased anxiety level were maintained in the absence of feedback. The present results demonstrate for the first time that successful self-regulation of amygdala-prefrontal top-down regulatory circuits may represent a novel strategy to control anxiety. As such, the present findings underscore both the critical contribution of amygdala-prefrontal circuits to emotion regulation and the therapeutic potential of connectivity-informed real-time neurofeedback.


Author(s):  
Jamie C. Gorman ◽  
David A. Grimm ◽  
Ronald H. Stevens ◽  
Trysha Galloway ◽  
Ann M. Willemsen-Dunlap ◽  
...  

Objective A method for detecting real-time changes in team cognition in the form of significant communication reorganizations is described. We demonstrate the method in the context of scenario-based simulation training. Background We present the dynamical view that individual- and team-level aspects of team cognition are temporally intertwined in a team’s real-time response to challenging events. We suggest that this real-time response represents a fundamental team cognitive skill regarding the rapidity and appropriateness of the response, and methods and metrics are needed to track this skill. Method Communication data from medical teams (Study 1) and submarine crews (Study 2) were analyzed for significant communication reorganization in response to training events. Mutual information between team members informed post hoc filtering to identify which team members contributed to reorganization. Results Significant communication reorganizations corresponding to challenging training events were detected for all teams. Less experienced teams tended to show delayed and sometimes ineffective responses that more experienced teams did not. Mutual information and post hoc filtering identified the individual-level inputs driving reorganization and potential mechanisms (e.g., leadership emergence, role restructuring) underlying reorganization. Conclusion The ability of teams to rapidly and effectively reorganize coordination patterns as the situation demands is a team cognitive skill that can be measured and tracked. Application Potential applications include team monitoring and assessment that would allow for visualization of a team’s real-time response and provide individualized feedback based on team member’s contributions to the team response.


Author(s):  
David Sloan Wilson

People have always been fascinated by cooperation and altruism in animals, in part to shed light on our own propensity or reluctance to help others. Darwin’s theory added a certain urgency to the subject because the principle of “nature red in tooth and claw” superficially seems to deny the possibility of altruism and cooperation altogether. Some evolutionary biologists have accepted and even reveled in this vision of nature, giving rise to statements such as “the economy of nature is competitive from beginning to end . . . scratch an ‘altruist’ and watch a hypocrite bleed”. Others have gone so far in the opposite direction as to proclaim the entire earth a unit that cooperatively regulates its own atmosphere (Lovelock 1979). The truth is somewhere between these two extremes; cooperation and altruism can evolve but only if special conditions are met. As might be expected from the polarized views outlined above, achieving this middle ground has been a difficult process. Science is often portrayed as a heroic march to the truth, but in this case, it is more like the Three Stooges trying to move a piano. I don’t mean to underestimate the progress that been made—the piano has been moved—but we need to appreciate the twists, turns, and reversals in addition to the final location. To see why cooperation and altruism pose a problem for evolutionary theory, consider the evolution of a nonsocial adaptation, such as cryptic coloration. Imagine a population of moths that vary in the degree to which they match their background. Every generation, the most conspicuous moths are detected and eaten by predators while the most cryptic moths survive and reproduce. If offspring resemble their parents, then the average moth will become more cryptic with every generation. Anyone who has beheld a moth that looks exactly like a leaf, right down to the veins and simulated herbivore damage, cannot fail to be impressed by the power of natural selection to evolve breathtaking adaptations at the individual level. Now consider the same process for a social adaptation, such as members of a group warning each other about approaching predators.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Ante L. Padjen

Music, like language, is a uniquely human experience, ubiquitous across human cultures and across the human life span.Musical capacity appears early in evolution and it seems to be innate to most of the human population. Neurobiological studies of music perception and music performance profoundly affect the brain, in an acute and chronic way, by modulating networks involved in cognition, sensation, emotion, reward, and movement corresponding to the empirical findings why people listen to music: pleasure, self-awareness, social relatedness, and arousal and mood regulation.Most intriguing is “salutogenic” effect of musical activities, such as instrumental and choral “musicking” (particularly in non-professional musicians), both on the individual level and in populations. Musical training can promote the development of non-musical skills as diverse as language development, attention, visuospatial perception, and executive functions.Music is also a prophylactic resource, it improves the bonding of mother and child. There is a wide range of therapeutic domains and disorders where musical interventions improve the outcome. As an example, familiar music has an exceptional ability to elicit memories, movements, motivation and positive emotions from adults affected by dementia.Considering that one of the most important problems in biomedicine is “understanding what is to be human” then “music should be an essential part of this pursuit” – of an understanding of the whole person. Despite evidence of significant effects of music on health and well-being - music is not well present in current re-humanization of medicine 


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 120 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Rink

<p>In their study of nine pianists Buck, MacRitchie and Bailey observe a universal embodiment of phrasing structure and other higher-level structural features of the music, the physical makeup of which is nevertheless particular to both the individual performers and the pieces they are performing. Such a conclusion invites renewed consideration of assumptions in the literature on musical performance about the nature and role of structure and about performers&rsquo; &lsquo;interpretations&rsquo; thereof. The findings also raise interesting questions about the musical viability of empirical research on performance and its capacity to shed light on how performers shape the music they play, their motivations in doing so, and how those listening to them might in turn be affected by this.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Olivera

Abstract To shed light on the quality of the ageing experience in Europe and its heterogeneity, this study adapts and computes the Active Ageing Index—an index constructed at the country level to monitor ageing quality in Europe—at the individual level. This strategy allows the measuring of inequality in the experience of active ageing and is flexible enough to consider different value judgements in the overall assessment of the quality of life while ageing. The study examines the predictors of this inequality by using regressions with a Gini-recentred influence function. It finds that education plays a very significant role in reducing inequality, though its influence varies across countries. Furthermore, the study uncovers large variance in the quality of the ageing experience across Europe. For instance, more than 50% of the populations of Romania, Lithuania and Bulgaria show a level of active ageing quality lower than that of the bottom decile of the distribution in Sweden.


Virittäjä ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 123 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Lappalainen ◽  
Liisa Mustanoja ◽  
Michael O'Dell

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan helsinkiläispuhujien idiolektin muutosta 40 vuoden aika­jänteellä. Kyseessä on sosiolingvistinen reaaliaikatutkimus, jossa yhdeksää 1950-luvulla syntynyttä puhujaa on haastateltu kolme kertaa: 1970-, 1990- ja 2010-luvulla. Haastattelut ovat osa Helsingin puhekielen pitkittäiskorpusta. Analyysin kohteeksi on valittu yhteensä 17 äänne- ja muotopiirrettä, joita on tarkasteltu myös aiemmissa Helsingin puhekielen variaatiota koskevissa tutkimuksissa. Tutkimusaineiston mallinnuksessa ja muutoksen arvioimisessa käytetään bayesilaisia tilastomenetelmiä. Tulokset osoittavat, että muutos on tavallisempaa kuin idiolektin säilyminen muuttumattomana. Koko aineiston näkökulmasta muutos on ollut suurempaa kahden ensimmäisen kuin kahden jälkimmäisen haastattelun välillä; useimmissa tapauksissa muutos on ensimmäisen ja toisen haastattelun välillä tapahtunut puhekielestä yleis­kielen suuntaan. Jälkimmäisellä jaksolla muutokset ovat olleet heterogeenisempiä ja pienempiä, mutta niitä on silti tapahtunut. Ainoastaan yksi tutkituista idiolekteista näyttää olevan 40 vuoden ajanjaksolla melko muuttumaton: siinä muutokset olivat niin vähäisiä, ettei tällä aineistolla saatu varmuutta muutoksen suunnasta. Muutossuuntia tarkasteltaessa pohditaan elämänvaiheiden ja haastatteluista ilmenevien kieli­asenteiden merkitystä idiolektissa tapahtuneiden muutosten tai sen muuttumattomuuden selittäjinä.   How and when does an idiolect change? Change in the idiolects of Finnish speakers in Helsinki and methods for studying the change This study concerns real-time change and variation at the individual level. The focus is on nine informants born in the 1950s who have been interviewed three times, in the 1970s, 1990s and 2010s. The database is part of The Longitudinal Corpus of Finnish Spoken in Helsinki. The aim is to find out whether informants’ language use has changed during this time period on the level of phonological and morphological ­variables. Altogether 17 variables have been chosen for analysis. The variability and change of these variables are evaluated using Bayesian statistics. Bayesian analysis enables the illustration of an error margin in the idiolect studies. With its help, it is possible to describe the occurrence of each chosen variable on both an individual and a group level at the same time. The results show that tendencies and changes in language use are partly shared, partly individual. The majority of the idiolects studied have changed over the period of 40 years, and changes have been greater from the 1970s to the 1990s than from the 1990s to the 2010s; only one idiolect can be considered stable. In most of the cases, the proportion of the standard variants have increased from youth (1970s) to adulthood (1990s). Variation and change are discussed in the light of those changes that have taken place in individuals’ lives and the language attitudes they present in their interviews.


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