Being emotionally moved is associated with phasic physiological calming during tonic physiological arousal from pleasant tears.

The experience of being emotionally "moved" is considered a valuable emotional experience. Although pleasant chills (goosebumps and shivers) and tears (weeping and a lump in the throat) are commonly associated with the experience of being emotionally moved, no previous studies have examined which of these psychophysiological responses is the most intrinsic to the phenomenon of being moved. We conducted two music listening experiments to examine this question. Both experiments revealed that, when chills and tears were reliably separated, chills evoked phasic increases in electrodermal activity, whereas tears induced phasic decreases in heart and respiration rate during tonic physiological arousal. Importantly, whereas tears predicted the experience of being moved, experiencing chills did not. Furthermore, psychoacoustic features of music did not explain the physiological response of chills and tears. The results demonstrated that the experience of being moved involved a sense of pleasure coupled with psychophysiological relief from tension. Based on extended attachment theory, the sequential process of physiological arousal to physiological calming, which is derived from abstract life-guiding ideas via the combination of sound and lyrics, may be important for evoking the experience of being emotionally moved. These psychophysiological characteristics could explain why people seek to be moved.

Affective auditory stimulus database: An expanded version of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS-E).

Using appropriate stimuli to evoke emotions is especially important for researching emotion. Psychologists have provided several standardized affective stimulus databases-such as the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) as visual stimulus databases, as well as the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS) and the Montreal Affective Voices as auditory stimulus databases for emotional experiments. However, considering the limitations of the existing auditory stimulus database studies, research using auditory stimuli is relatively limited compared with the studies using visual stimuli. First, the number of sample sounds is limited, making it difficult to equate across emotional conditions and semantic categories. Second, some artificially created materials (music or human voice) may fail to accurately drive the intended emotional processes. Our principal aim was to expand existing auditory affective sample database to sufficiently cover natural sounds. We asked 207 participants to rate 935 sounds (including the sounds from the IADS-2) using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) and three basic-emotion rating scales. The results showed that emotions in sounds can be distinguished on the affective rating scales, and the stability of the evaluations of sounds revealed that we have successfully provided a larger corpus of natural, emotionally evocative auditory stimuli, covering a wide range of semantic categories. Our expanded, standardized sound sample database may promote a wide range of research in auditory systems and the possible interactions with other sensory modalities, encouraging direct reliable comparisons of outcomes from different researchers in the field of psychology.

Two types of peak emotional responses to music: The psychophysiology of chills and tears.

People sometimes experience a strong emotional response to artworks. Previous studies have demonstrated that the peak emotional experience of chills (goose bumps or shivers) when listening to music involves psychophysiological arousal and a rewarding effect. However, many aspects of peak emotion are still not understood. The current research takes a new perspective of peak emotional response of tears (weeping, lump in the throat). A psychophysiological experiment showed that self-reported chills increased electrodermal activity and subjective arousal whereas tears produced slow respiration during heartbeat acceleration, although both chills and tears induced pleasure and deep breathing. A song that induced chills was perceived as being both happy and sad whereas a song that induced tears was perceived as sad. A tear-eliciting song was perceived as calmer than a chill-eliciting song. These results show that tears involve pleasure from sadness and that they are psychophysiologically calming; thus, psychophysiological responses permit the distinction between chills and tears. Because tears may have a cathartic effect, the functional significance of chills and tears seems to be different. We believe that the distinction of two types of peak emotions is theoretically relevant and further study of tears would contribute to more understanding of human peak emotional response.

Resting physiological arousal is associated with the experience of music-induced chills.

In the study of emotion and autonomic nervous system functioning, resting physiological arousal is usually considered a negative characteristic. The present study examined the relationship between resting physiological arousal and positive emotional experience linked to psychophysiological arousal. We assessed resting physiological arousal using markers as high skin conductance level and low respiratory sinus arrhythmia, measured just before participants listened to their favorite music. Participants reported the sensation of chills (goose bumps, shivers) by pressing a mouse button while listening. The results indicated that individuals with resting physiological arousal frequently experience music-induced chills, which evoked unambiguous pleasurable feelings and an increase in skin conductance response. The current results, and the previously demonstrated relationship between resting physiological arousal and negative emotionality linked to psychophysiological arousal (e.g., anxiety, panic), suggest that resting physiological arousal may reflect sensitivity to psychophysiological arousal with both intense positive and negative emotions.

[Music-induced chills as a strong emotional experience].

While enjoying music and other works of art, people sometimes experience "chills," a strong emotional response characterized by a sensation of goose bumps or shivers. Such experiences differ from having goose bumps as a defense response or from shivering in reaction to cold temperatures. The current paper presents the phenomenon of music-induced chills and reviews the chill-related emotional response, autonomic nervous system activity, and brain activity. It also reviews the musico-acoustic features, listening contexts, and individual differences that cause chills. Based on the review, we propose a hypothetical model regarding the evocation of music-induced chills. Furthermore, we investigate the strong emotional response associated with chills by exploring the relationship between music-related chills and non-music-related chills, and discuss future research directions.

Early somatosensory event-related potentials reveal attentional bias for internal stimuli in social anxiety.

The present study used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate allocation of attentional resources to internal and external stimuli in individuals with social anxiety. High and low socially anxious individuals were presented with depictions of various facial expressions or household objects, followed by an internal (vibration presented to the finger) or external probe (the letter "E"). Participants were told that the vibration signals physiological changes and were asked to detect both probes. High socially anxious individuals showed larger front-central N140 amplitudes in response to vibratory internal probes as compared to non-anxious controls. ERPs elicited by picture stimuli and external probes and reaction times in response to both probe types did not differ between high and low social anxiety individuals. Early somatosensory ERPs reveal an attentional bias for internal stimuli that does not appear in overt behavior.

Implicit and explicit associations in the fear structure of social anxiety.

Summary.-Implicit associations in the fear structure of social anxiety were investigated and their relations with explicit associations were examined in the present study. The Implicit Association Test was used to assess implicit associations. Individuals scoring High (n = 26) and Low (n = 18) on Social Anxiety completed two forms of the Implicit Association Test and rated the probability and cost of negative social outcomes. Analyses showed an implicit association between anxiety responses and negative evaluations was more strongly formed in the High Social Anxiety group than in the Low Social Anxiety group. Furthermore, relations between implicit associations and explicit measures were minimal. These findings suggested that the Implicit Association Test is suitable for the assessment of implicit associations in the fear structure of social anxiety, and that implicit associations of social anxiety are relatively independent of explicit associations.

[Distorted cognition of bodily sensations in subtypes of social anxiety].

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between subtypes of social anxiety and distorted cognition of bodily sensations. The package of questionnaires including the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) was administered to 582 undergraduate students. To identify subtypes of social anxiety, cluster analysis was conducted using scores of the SPS and SIAS. Five clusters were identified and labeled as follows: Generalized type characterized by intense anxiety in most social situations, Non-anxious type characterized by low anxiety levels in social situations, Averaged type whose anxiety levels are averaged, Interaction anxiety type who feels anxiety mainly in social interaction situations, and Performance anxiety type who feels anxiety mainly in performance situations. Results of an ANOVA indicated that individuals with interaction type fear the negative evaluation from others regarding their bodily sensations whereas individuals with performance type overestimate the visibility of their bodily sensations to others. Differences in salient aspects of cognitive distortion among social anxiety subtypes may show necessity to select intervention techniques in consideration of subtypes.

Heart rate variability with repetitive exposure to music.

Previous studies of physiological responses to music showed inconsistent results, which might be attributable to methodological differences. Heart rate variability has been used to assess activation of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. The present study aimed to examine heart rate variability with repetitive exposure to sedative or excitative music. The participants were 13 undergraduate or graduate students who were each exposed to three conditions sedative music (SM), excitative music (EM), and no music (NM) on different days. Each participant underwent four sessions of one condition in a day. Sedative music and no music each induced both high relaxation and low tension subjectively. However, excitative music decreased perceived tension and increased perceived relaxation as the number of sessions increased. The low-frequency (LF) component of heart rate variability (HRV) and the LF/HF (high-frequency) ratio increased during SM and EM sessions but decreased during NM sessions. The HF component of HRV during SM was higher than that during EM but the same as that during NM. These findings suggest that excitative music decreased the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system.

Disturbance effect of music on processing of verbal and spatial memories.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the disturbance effect of music on performances of memory tasks. Subjects performed a verbal memory task and a spatial memory task in 4 sound conditions, including the presence of vocal music, instrumental music, a natural sound (murmurings of a stream), and no music. 47 undergraduate volunteers were randomly assigned to perform tasks under each condition. Perceived disturbance was highest under the vocal music condition regardless of the type of task. A disturbance in performance by music was observed only with the verbal memory task under the vocal and the instrumental music conditions. These findings were discussed from the perspectives of the working memory hypothesis and the changing state model.