Real-time EEG-based emotion recognition for neurohumanities: perspectives from principal component analysis and tree-based algorithms.

Within the field of Humanities, there is a recognized need for educational innovation, as there are currently no reported tools available that enable individuals to interact with their environment to create an enhanced learning experience in the humanities (e.g., immersive spaces). This project proposes a solution to address this gap by integrating technology and promoting the development of teaching methodologies in the humanities, specifically by incorporating emotional monitoring during the learning process of humanistic context inside an immersive space. In order to achieve this goal, a real-time emotion recognition EEG-based system was developed to interpret and classify specific emotions. These emotions aligned with the early proposal by Descartes (Passions), including admiration, love, hate, desire, joy, and sadness. This system aims to integrate emotional data into the Neurohumanities Lab interactive platform, creating a comprehensive and immersive learning environment. This work developed a ML, real-time emotion recognition model that provided Valence, Arousal, and Dominance (VAD) estimations every 5 seconds. Using PCA, PSD, RF, and Extra-Trees, the best 8 channels and their respective best band powers were extracted; furthermore, multiple models were evaluated using shift-based data division and cross-validations. After assessing their performance, Extra-Trees achieved a general accuracy of 94%, higher than the reported in the literature (88% accuracy). The proposed model provided real-time predictions of VAD variables and was adapted to classify Descartes' six main passions. However, with the VAD values obtained, more than 15 emotions can be classified (reported in the VAD emotion mapping) and extend the range of this application.

One hundred years of neurosciences in the arts and humanities, a bibliometric review.

BACKGROUND: Neuroscientific approaches have historically triggered changes in the conception of creativity and artistic experience, which can be revealed by noting the intersection of these fields of study in terms of variables such as global trends, methodologies, objects of study, or application of new technologies; however, these neuroscientific approaches are still often considered as disciplines detached from the arts and humanities. In this light, the question arises as to what evidence the history of neurotechnologies provides at the intersection of creativity and aesthetic experience. METHODS: We conducted a century-long bibliometric analysis of key parameters in multidisciplinary studies published in the Scopus database. Screening techniques based on the PRISMA method and advanced data analysis techniques were applied to 3612 documents metadata from the years 1922 to 2022. We made graphical representations of the results applying algorithmic and clusterization processes to keywords and authors relationships. RESULTS: From the analyses, we found a) a shift from a personality-focus quantitative analysis to a field-focus qualitative approach, considering topics such as art, perception, aesthetics and beauty; b) The locus of interest in fMRI-supported neuroanatomy has been shifting toward EEG technologies and models based on machine learning and deep learning in recent years; c) four main clusters were identified in the study approaches: humanistic, creative, neuroaesthetic and medical; d) the neuroaesthetics cluster is the most central and relevant, mediating between creativity and neuroscience; e) neuroaesthetics and neuroethics are two of the neologism that better characterizes the challenges that this convergence of studies will have in the next years. CONCLUSIONS: Through a longitudinal analysis, we evidenced the great influence that neuroscience is having on the thematic direction of the arts and humanities. The perspective presented shows how this field is being consolidated and helps to define it as a new opportunity of great potential for future researchers.

A text mining analysis of human flourishing on Twitter.

The power of social media in spreading the idea of wellbeing has already been addressed by several psychologists and scholars through the analysis of the vocabulary; however, the use of the human flourishing (HF) concept in such platforms has not yet been analyzed. This study addresses such a topic by analyzing more than 600 thousand Twitter messages posted by a community of users who associate themselves with HF and comparing them to more than 400 thousand messages in other Twitter lists. The study aims to identify the HF users' interests, the richness in their vocabulary, the feelings and emotions that they share, and the grammar used in their constructions. Such an analysis was conducted through text mining computational methods, including sentiment analysis, natural language processing (NLP), and topic modeling. The results revealed that although HF users employ average vocabulary diversity, they share more positive emotions, and a greater variety of emojis. They also tended to discuss different topics, from more spiritual and health-related subjects to more practical matters related to work and success. Finally, they generally wrote from an empathetic state of mind, caring about people's day-to-day feelings and about the world.

The Fertility of a Concept: A Bibliometric Review of Human Flourishing.

Human flourishing is a thriving concept, whose use has greatly increased among academic researchers from a variety of fields, from the arts and humanities and psychology to the social and environmental sciences and economics. To better understand the concept's success, this work proposes a bibliometric review, in which statistical methods and data mining were used to analyze 1829 documents, chosen from the Scopus database by searching the term "human flourishing". Through cluster and network analyses, the study shows the concept's evolution and composition, as well as its current tensions and trends, in which the predominantly psychological approach is being compensated with social concerns and the search for justice. Furthermore, the concept's strong philosophical roots provide it with abstract richness and great fertility, which can be seen in keywords, such as virtue or eudaimonia. This bibliometric review proved to be useful for this type of study, despite the limitations imposed by the characteristics of the Scopus database itself.