Measuring Health: A Guide to Rating Scales and Questionnaires

Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy.

Ongoing brain activity can be recorded as electroen-cephalograph (EEG) to discover the links between emotional states and brain activity. This study applied machine-learning algorithms to categorize EEG dynamics according to subject self-reported emotional states during music listening. A framework was proposed to optimize EEG-based emotion recognition by systematically 1) seeking emotion-specific EEG features and 2) exploring the efficacy of the classifiers. Support vector machine was employed to classify four emotional states (joy, anger, sadness, and pleasure) and obtained an averaged classification accuracy of 82.29% ± 3.06% across 26 subjects. Further, this study identified 30 subject-independent features that were most relevant to emotional processing across subjects and explored the feasibility of using fewer electrodes to characterize the EEG dynamics during music listening. The identified features were primarily derived from electrodes placed near the frontal and the parietal lobes, consistent with many of the findings in the literature. This study might lead to a practical system for noninvasive assessment of the emotional states in practical or clinical applications.

EEG-Based Emotion Recognition in Music Listening

Human emotion and its electrophysiological correlates are still poorly understood. The present study examined whether the valence of perceived emotions would differentially influence EEG power spectra and heart rate (HR). Pleasant and unpleasant emotions were induced by consonant and dissonant music. Unpleasant (compared to pleasant) music evoked a significant decrease of HR, replicating the pattern of HR responses previously described for the processing of emotional pictures, sounds, and films. In the EEG, pleasant (contrasted to unpleasant) music was associated with an increase of frontal midline (Fm) theta power. This effect is taken to reflect emotional processing in close interaction with attentional functions. These findings show that Fm theta is modulated by emotion more strongly than previously believed.

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Music and emotion: electrophysiological correlates of the processing of pleasant and unpleasant music.

Musically trained and untrained listeners were required to listen to 27 musical excerpts and to group those that conveyed a similar emotional meaning (Experiment 1). The groupings were transformed into a matrix of emotional dissimilarity that was analysed through multidimensional scaling methods (MDS). A 3-dimensional space was found to provide a good fit of the data, with arousal and emotional valence as the primary dimensions. Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed the consistency of this 3-dimensional space using excerpts of only 1 second duration. The overall findings indicate that emotional responses to music are very stable within and between participants, and are weakly influenced by musical expertise and excerpt duration. These findings are discussed in light of a cognitive account of musical emotion.

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Multidimensional scaling of emotional responses to music: The effect of musical expertise and of the duration of the excerpts

Frontal EEG Responses as a Function of Affective Musical Features

Mounting evidence points to joint attention as a mediating variable in children's adaptive behavior development. Joint attention in interactions between hearing mothers and congenitally deaf ( n = 27) and hearing ( n = 29) children, ages 18–36 months, was examined. All deaf children had severe to profound hearing loss. Mother-child interactions were coded for maternally initiated and child-initiated success rates in establishing joint attention; mothers completed ratings of their children's adaptive behavior. Hearing mother–deaf child dyads had significantly lower maternally initiated success rates. No significant between-group differences on child-initiated success rates were shown. Maternal ratings of adaptive behavior were significantly lower for deaf children, and related positively and significantly to both child-initiated and maternally initiated success rates. The findings suggest that mother-child interactions that are low in successful establishment of joint attention might mediate the development of socioemotional problems evident in deaf children with hearing families.

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Establishment of joint attention in dyads involving hearing mothers of deaf and hearing children, and its relation to adaptive social behavior.

The “dual usage problem” in the explanations of “joint attention” and children’s socioemotional development: A reconceptualization

The authors examined the influence of cochlear implants on joint attention and social competence in severe to profoundly congenitally deaf toddlers. Twenty-seven hearing mothers and hearing toddlers (HH dyads), and 26 hearing mothers and deaf toddlers, 9 with cochlear implantation (HD-cochlear dyads), and 17 with no cochlear implantation (HD-no cochlear dyads) were observed engaging in joint attention. Mothers provided ratings of children’s social competence. HH and HD-cochlear dyads displayed more joint attention than HD-no cochlear dyads. Children who were in dyads who engaged in more joint attention were rated by their mothers as higher on expressive and compliance behaviors and lower on disruptive behaviors compared to children who were in dyads who engaged in lower levels of joint attention. Findings suggest that cochlear implants may aid in the early socio-emotional development of some deaf children.

Joint Attention and Social Competence in Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants

Although joint attention processes are known to play an important role in adaptive social behavior in typical development, we know little about these processes in clinical child populations. We compared early school age children with selective mutism (SM; n = 19) versus mixed anxiety (MA; n = 18) and community controls (CC; n = 26) on joint attention measures coded from direct observations with their parent during an unstructured free play task and two structured tasks. As predicted, the SM dyads established significantly fewer episodes of joint attention through parental initiation acts than the MA and CC dyads during the structured tasks. Findings suggest that children with SM may withdraw from their parents during stressful situations, thus missing out on opportunities for learning other coping skills. We discuss the implications of the present findings for understanding the maintenance and treatment of SM.

Susan L. Tasker

Papers

Frontal EEG Responses as a Function of Affective Musical Features

Establishment of joint attention in dyads involving hearing mothers of deaf and hearing children, and its relation to adaptive social behavior.

The “dual usage problem” in the explanations of “joint attention” and children’s socioemotional development: A reconceptualization

Joint Attention and Social Competence in Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants

Joint Attention in Parent―Child Dyads Involving Children with Selective Mutism: A Comparison Between Anxious and Typically Developing Children