The Aha! experience is not a unitary construct, and several different dimensions have been proposed as its constituents. However, a systematic analysis of how much each purported dimension predicts the overall Aha! experience is needed. Presented with a large set of difficult problems (magic tricks), participants were asked to rate their solving experience with regard to suddenness in the emerg...

Reflexive eyeblinks to a startle probe vary with the pleasantness of affective pictures, whereas the corresponding P300 varies with emotional arousal. The impact of attention to the probe on these effects was examined by varying task and probe type. Probes were either nonstartling tones or startling noises presented during affective picture viewing. Half the participants performed a task requir...

Aromatherapy claims that citrus essential oils exert mood lifting effects. Controlled studies, however, have yielded inconsistent results. Notably, studies so far did not control for odor pleasantness, although pleasantness is a critical determinant of emotional responses to odors. This study investigates mood lifting effects of d-(+)-limonene, the most prominent substance in citrus essential o...

It is shown that olfactory sensory-specific satiety, measured by ratings of the pleasantness of the odour of a food eaten relative to the change in pleasantness of other foods, can be produced by eating a food to satiety. It is also shown that olfactory and taste sensory-specific satiety can be produced by chewing samples of a food for approximately as long as the food would normally be eaten i...

OBJECTIVE Experiencing ‎pleasant events during daily life ‎has a significant positive role in ‎the personal mental health and ‎acts as a keystone for "behavioral ‎activation" (BA) interventions. ‎There are serious differences in ‎the pleasant event schedules in ‎different cultures and countries. ‎We aimed to develop a Persian ‎checklist of pleasant events ‎‎(PCPE) to provide and validate a ‎cul...

INTRODUCTION Intrapersonal touch is a powerful tool for communicating emotions and can among many things evoke feelings of eroticism and sexual arousal. The peripheral neural mechanisms of erotic touch signaling have been less studied. C tactile afferents (unmyelinated low-threshold mechanoreceptors), known to underpin pleasant aspects of touch processing, have been posited to play an important...

Relief fits the definition of a reward. Unlike other reward types the pleasantness of relief depends on the violation of a negative expectation, yet this has not been investigated using neuroimaging approaches. We hypothesized that the degree of negative expectation depends on state (dread) and trait (pessimism) sensitivity. Of the brain regions that are involved in mediating pleasure, the nucl...

Repeated exposure to sugary, fatty, and salty foods often enhances their appeal. However, it is unknown if exposure influences learned palatability of foods typically promoted as part of a healthy diet. We tested whether the palatability of pulse containing foods provided during a weight loss intervention which were particularly high in fiber and low in energy density would increase with repeat...

Six unfamiliar foods were introduced to children (8–11 years old, n = 72) who responded (yes/no) to questions as to whether they (1) had earlier seen, (2) had earlier tasted, (3) were willing to try, and (4) actually tried each food when given the opportunity. Pleasantness (if not tasted, expected pleasantness) of the foods was also rated. Children who wanted to try a food and tasted it, rated ...