Apart from its natural relevance to cognition, music provides a window into the intimate relationships between production, perception, experience, and emotion. Here, emotional responses and neural activity were observed as they evolved together with stimulus parameters over several minutes. Participants listened to a skilled music performance that included the natural fluctuations in timing and...

The human brain has a preference for processing of emotionally salient stimuli. In the auditory modality, emotional prosody can induce such involuntary biasing of processing resources. To investigate the neural correlates underlying automatic processing of emotional information in the voice, words spoken in neutral, happy, erotic, angry, and fearful prosody were presented in a passive-listening...

Speech and emotion perception are dynamic processes in which it may be optimal to integrate synchronous signals emitted from different sources. Studies of audio-visual (AV) perception of neutrally expressed speech demonstrate supra-additive (i.e., where AV>[unimodal auditory+unimodal visual]) responses in left STS to crossmodal speech stimuli. However, emotions are often conveyed simultaneously...

This study examined the influence of perceived emotional intelligence (PEI) and intrusive thoughts on emotional responses following a stressful event. PEI was assessed on 144 participants using the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS). The TMMS assesses perceived ability to: (1) attend to moods (Attention); (2) discriminate clearly among moods (Clarity); and (3) regulate moods (Repair). The main purpos...

For service robots developed to assist nurses in routine patient services (e.g., medicine delivery), patient emotional experiences with the robot may be as important as robot task performance in terms of assessments of effectiveness and acceptance. The objective of this study was to understand the effect of different features of service robots on elderly people’s perceptions and emotional respo...

Recent research on the crossmodal integration of visual and auditory perception suggests that evaluations of emotional information in one sensory modality may tend toward the emotional value generated in another sensory modality. This implies that the emotions elicited by musical stimuli can influence the perception of emotional stimuli presented in other sensory modalities, through a top-down ...

In visual perception of emotional stimuli, low- and high-level appraisal processes have been found to engage different neural structures. Beyond emotional facial expression, emotional prosody is an important auditory cue for social interaction. Neuroimaging studies have proposed a network for emotional prosody processing that involves a right temporal input region and explicit evaluation in bil...

Watching news is important for preadolescents, but it may also harm their well-being. This study examined whether applying insights from positive psychology to news production can reduce this potential harm, by reducing negative emotional responses and enhancing positive emotional responses to negative news, and by encouraging prosocial intentions. Moreover, we explored whether peer discussion ...

OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of personality traits on emotional responses to interpersonal stress. METHODS Thirty-two healthy college students (18 men, 14 women; age 25.2±2.7 years) participated in the study. Mood and anxiety were assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory and the State Trait Anxiety Inventory. Personality traits were assessed with the Int...