Predicting attitudes toward ambiguity using natural language processing on free descriptions for open-ended question measurements.

Individual traits and reactions to ambiguity differ and are conceptualized in terms of an individual's attitudes toward ambiguity or ambiguity tolerance. The development of natural language processing technology has made it possible to measure mental states and reactions through open-ended questions, rather than predefined numerical rating scales, which have traditionally been the dominant method in psychological research. This study presented three ambiguity-related situations and responses collected online from 591 participants in an open-ended format. After the analysis with bidirectional encoder representations from transformers, correlations were calculated using scores from the numerical evaluation by conventional questionnaire, and a significant moderate positive correlation was found. Therefore, this study found that attitudes toward ambiguity can be measured using an open-ended response method of reporting everyday life states. It is a novel methodology that can be expanded to other scales in psychology and can potentially be used in educational and clinical situations where participants can be asked to respond with minimal burden.

Interaction between creation and appreciation: How linguistic art creation impacts the aesthetic evaluation of haiku poetry and ink paintings.

In the psychology of aesthetics, compared with appreciation, there are fewer studies on art creation. This study aims to examine the influence of art creation on appreciation using haiku poetry with reference to the Mirror Model-a process model combining creation and appreciation. Although the model has been primarily used to examine visual arts, we examine its applicability to linguistic arts. In addition, we use ink painting to examine whether a generalisation across artistic genres can occur. The 115 participants were divided into two conditions-creation and control. The former created haiku before and after appreciation, while the latter did not create any haiku. The results showed no improvement in evaluation through creation. Additionally, recognising the difficulty related to creation leads to aesthetic evaluation, and this relationship is mediated by awe. These results expand the existing information regarding the Mirror Model in terms of the different art genres.

Examining social anxiety and dual aspects of social comparison orientation: the moderating role of self-evaluation of social skills.

Introduction: Social comparison orientation comprises ability comparison, which entails superior and inferior ratings; and opinion comparison, which does not include such ratings. Previous research on negative emotions and the social rank theory of social anxiety indicates that social anxiety is positively associated with ability comparison. This is particularly true of individuals with a stronger sense of inferiority (e.g., lower self-evaluation of their social skills). Nevertheless, the relationship between the two aspects of social comparison orientation and social anxiety remains unclear. Methods: Two hundred thirty-eight individuals (Mage = 40.53 ± 9.78 years, 50.4% men) participated in an online cross-sectional survey questionnaire. Results: Social anxiety was positively correlated with ability comparison but not opinion comparison. The relationship between social anxiety in situations observed by others and ability comparison was stronger for individuals with lower (vs. higher) self-rated social skills. Discussion: This study showed that the two types of social comparison are differentially related to social anxiety. The findings support the social rank theory of social anxiety, which states that social comparisons involving superior and inferior ratings lead to social anxiety owing to the perception of one's inferiority. Making such social comparisons can result in heightened social anxiety, particularly for individuals with low self-evaluations of social skills. The results indicate the importance of these social comparisons in the emergence and persistence of social anxiety. Furthermore, the potential of interventions based on mindfulness, compassion, social media, and video feedback in mitigating the negative effects of such social comparisons is discussed.

A closer look at the time course of bodily responses to awe experiences.

The structure and function of awe have been examined by focusing on the average level of outcomes during awe experiences. In the present study, we tested the psychophysiological process of experiencing awe, focusing on time-series changes in skin conductance responses (SCRs), a moment-by-moment measure of sympathetic nervous responses, and pupil diameter, which is dilated or constricted through the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. The responses were measured through an experiment where 77 Japanese university students watched emotional (awe, amusement, or neutral) videos while moving a joystick when they felt supernatural agency or non-agency, examining the underlying psychological processes. We found that experiencing awe was associated with frequent and steep changes in SCRs and frequent changes in pupil diameter. The joystick inclination, the perceptions of the supernatural, was kept at a high level from the start to the end of awe experiences. These results may reflect the psychophysiological processes of awe: the "fluctuation" of the sympathetic nervous system might underlie awe-specific experiences. Our findings shed new light on the mechanisms of the body-mind interaction in awe experiences.

Developing and validating a Japanese version of the Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire.

Mental imagery refers to the representation of stimuli that are not physically present and has long been a subject of interest in psychology. However, most research on mental imagery has been limited to visual images, with other types of imagery, such as sound and smell, receiving little attention. A possible reason for this is the lack of appropriate scales to measure the vividness of multisensory imagery. The Plymouth Sensory Imagery Scale (Psi-Q) has been developed to address this issue and has been used in several studies to measure the vividness of seven imageries: vision, sound, smell, taste, touch, body, and feeling. In this study of 400 participants in Japan, the Psi-Q was translated into Japanese and tested for reliability and validity. The results showed good internal reliability and retest reliability and moderate to high correlations with other measures of construct validity, including mindfulness, Big Five, and life satisfaction. Additionally, there is no significant difference in total Psi-Q scores between the Japanese and British samples, although some differences are found in individual sensory imagery abilities. This study provides valuable insights into multisensory mental imagery, and it is expected that research dealing simultaneously with the responses of multisensory modalities will further accumulate.

Strengthened social ties in disasters: Threat-awe encourages interdependent worldviews via powerlessness.

Threat-awe, a negatively valenced variant of awe, is thought to strengthen social ties among community members. However, few empirical studies have examined the social functions of threat-awe. This study investigated whether threat-awe is linked to interdependent worldviews through feelings of powerlessness in comparison with positive awe. After remembering and describing their experiences of positive-or threat-awe, 486 Japanese participants reported on items regarding a small self, a sense of powerlessness, and interdependent worldviews. The results demonstrated that threat-awe encouraged interdependent worldviews via an increased sense of powerlessness, rather than the small self, compared to the positive awe condition. From textual perspectives, the semantic networks between awe-related and other words differed from the descriptions of threat-awe and positive awe experiences. These results provide a more nuanced understanding of the emotions of awe as well as new insights into human cooperation in the context of disasters.

Effect of financial and non-financial reward and punishment for inhibitory control in boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

BACKGROUND: The development of inhibitory processes is disturbed in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); however, little is known about the effect of negative punishment for inhibitory performance in this population. AIMS: We investigated differences in the effects of reward and punishment, developmental changes, and response inhibition between children with and without ADHD, using financial (F-FB) and non-financial (NF-FB) feedback. METHODS AND MATERIALS: We conducted financial and non-financial go/no-go tasks under reward and punishment conditions with 21 boys with ADHD and 21 healthy controls (HCs), in Japan. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: We found group-related significant interactions between group, feedback type, and punishment (p = .013), and group, feedback type, and age (p = .009). There were significant differences in inhibitory error under F-FB only in HCs between the punishment-absent and punishment-present conditions (p = .003). In the ADHD group, age-dependent effects were found for both feedback types (ps < .01), but only F-FB effects were found in HCs (p = .008). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Punishment for inhibitory control had different effects on the ADHD and HC groups. Children with ADHD respond differently to external motivation than HCs, leading to difficulties with peers or confusion among teachers and caregivers.

Role of fantasy in emotional clarity and emotional regulation in empathy: A preliminary study.

Fantasy is the experience of identifying with characters in movies, novels, plays, and other fictional situations. In social contexts, individuals take on the perspective of others by sensing their emotions through empathy. During this process, perspective-taking and emotional sharing affect one's metacognition, which deals with the distinction between and the understanding of one's emotions (clarity) and their regulation (repair); previous studies have primarily focused on these processes. However, perspective-taking-considering another individual's viewpoint-requires one to imagine their outlook; it also induces emotional responses. This study examined the role of fantasy in clarity and repair in metacognition, for which data derived from 475 Japanese participants were analyzed. The results of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index showed that fantasy was positively associated with clarity and repair in the Trait Meta-Mood Scale; these relationships were moderated by perspective-taking and personal distress. Our results revealed that the emotions experienced within oneself might be understood as the distinction between "imagining" (through their imagination; e.g., internal or mental pictures) and "imaging" (from an image; e.g., external pictures). Individuals imagine their immersion into others using lower-level automatic body sensations (emotional contagion), and the accompanying negative emotions are regulated by metacognition.

Neural representations of awe: Distinguishing common and distinct neural mechanisms.

Awe is an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that transcend one's current frames of reference. The psychological form and function of awe differ between two types: positive-awe, which arises from perceptually aesthetic experiences (e.g., the beauty of nature, spiritual experiences, or the virtue of a leader), and threat-awe, which is triggered by threatening stimuli (e.g., natural disasters, wrathful god, or a leader's coercive charisma). Here, using functional MRI, we investigated common and distinct neural responses to experiences of positive- and threat-awe, elicited by watching awe-inspiring videos. We found that both awe experiences deactivated the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) in contrast to control conditions (positive-awe vs. amusement; threat-awe vs. fear), which suggest that awe experiences generally involve the "schema liberation" process since the left MTG plays a critical role in matching existing schema to events. In addition, positive-awe was associated with increased functional connectivity between the MTG and the anterior/posterior cingulate cortex, which are associated with the aesthetic reward process, and the supramarginal gyrus (SMG), which is involved in the self-other representation. Threat-awe was associated with increased functional connectivity between the MTG and amygdala, which detects and processes threat stimuli, as well as between the amygdala and SMG. These findings suggest that the neural mechanisms underlying the complex psychological processes of awe vary as a function of the type of awe. The implications of these results regarding our understanding of the neural basis of awe and the future directions of human social cognition research are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of ADHD and ASD symptoms on the mental health of college students: a longitudinal study conducted in Japan.

Objective: Developmental disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), are some of the biggest contributors to mental health problems. However, it is not well known whether and how experiencing ADHD- or ASD-related symptoms can cause mental illness later in life. Participants: The sample initially included 124 college students, and 54 completed the study (Mage = 21.9 ± 2.8). Methods: In this study, a longitudinal survey was conducted to investigate the relationship between current ADHD- and ASD-related symptoms and later mental distress in college students. Participants answered the same questionnaire on two occasions, at an interval of approximately 8.5 months. Results: The results suggested that experiencing hyperactivity-impulsivity at this point in life causes later psychiatric illness. Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of early assessments and providing support for college students with ADHD-related symptoms, especially hyperactivity-impulsivity.

Differential Effects of Focused Attention and Open Monitoring Meditation on Autonomic Cardiac Modulation and Cortisol Secretion.

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been used widely as a useful tool for the alleviation of various stress-related symptoms. However, the effects of MBIs on stress-related physiological activity have not yet been ascertained. MBIs primarily consist of focused-attention (FA) and open-monitoring (OM) meditation. Since differing effects of FA and OM meditation on brain activities and cognitive tasks have been mentioned, we hypothesized that FA and OM meditation have also differing effects on stress-related physiological activity. In this study, we examined the effects of FA and OM meditation on autonomic cardiac modulation and cortisol secretion. Forty-one healthy adults (aged 20-46 years) who were meditation novices experienced 30-min FA and OM meditation tasks by listening to instructions. During resting- and meditation-states, electrocardiogram transducers were attached to participants to measure the R-R interval, which were used to evaluate heart rate (HR) and perform heart rate variability (HRV) analyses. Saliva samples were obtained from participants pre- and post-meditation to measure salivary cortisol levels. Results showed that FA meditation induced a decrease in HR and an increase in the root mean square of successive differences (rMSDD). In contrast, OM meditation induced an increase in the standard deviation of the normal-to-normal interval (SDNN) to rMSSD ratio (SDNN/rMSSD) and a decrease in salivary cortisol levels. These results suggest that FA meditation elevates physiological relaxation, whereas OM meditation elevates physiological arousal and reduces stress.

Exploring the Multidimensional Links Between Trait Mindfulness and Trait Empathy.

Empathy and mindfulness are currently major topics of scientific interest. Although it is well-known that mindfulness-typically as an outcome related to meditation-generates empathy at the state level, only a small number of studies have documented the trait (i.e., personality) level association between mindfulness and empathy. Furthermore, the underlying mechanisms (subcomponents and mediator variables) that support this association remain unclear. Thus, here, with a focus on the trait level, we investigated relationships among multiple subcomponents of trait mindfulness and trait empathy (Study 1). Next, we reexamined the aforementioned relationships in an independent sample, with the further aim of investigating relevant mediation factors (Study 2). We found that two attention-related components of trait mindfulness-observing and acting with awareness-reliably and positively related to both affective and cognitive dimensions of trait empathy (i.e., empathic concern and perspective taking). Furthermore, we found that effortful control, reappraisal, and trait alexithymia mediated relationships between the aforementioned attention-related components of trait mindfulness and empathic concern. Taken together, our results suggest that the links between mindfulness and empathy are multidimensional and complex. These findings may ultimately contribute to an understanding of the mechanisms underlying the positive effects of meditation on empathy.

Longitudinal Study of Maternal Beliefs About Infant Crying During the Postpartum Period: Interplay With Infant's Temperament.

Infant crying is an important signal for their survival and development, and maternal beliefs about crying predict responsiveness to crying. Most studies have considered caregivers' reactions to crying to be fixed, and it is unclear how they change with their caregiving experience. Additionally, it has recently been suggested that there is a bidirectional relationship between changes in mothers' beliefs about crying and infants' temperament. This study examined that relationship using a longitudinal study design. Maternal beliefs about crying and infant temperament of 339 Asian first-time mothers (mean age = 28.7 years, SD = 4.1) were measured at 1-month intervals over 4 months. There were 289 participants in Wave 2, 240 in Wave 3, and 164 in Wave 4. Prior to the main survey, we conducted a pre-survey to confirm the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Infant Crying Questionnaire. The results showed that parent-oriented beliefs, which focus on the caregiver rather than the crying infant, increased in mothers who had infants aged 3 months or older at Wave 1. We also found that the process of change in maternal beliefs was not uniform, and that infants high on surgency predicted changes in maternal beliefs about infant crying. Longitudinal studies of caregivers' changes, such as the present study, are expected to contribute to understanding the co-development of caregivers and infants.

Awe liberates the feeling that "my body is mine".

Awe is an emotional response to perceptually vast stimuli that transcend one's current frames of reference. Previous research indicated that awe promotes a smaller self, which led to the creation of a small-self hypothesis. Thus, we shed new light on this hypothesis in terms of sense of body ownership using a rubber hand illusion experiment; through it, we showed that awe evokes an increased sense of body ownership over the rubber hand and this effect was prominent among participants who experienced small self. Our findings suggest that awe might provoke a "liberation of the self" in terms of a sense of body ownership as awe has been thought to liberate existing schemas, hence informing the demonstrable implications of the psychological mechanisms of awe.

Short-term stress enhances individuals' adaptive behaviors: a near-infrared spectroscopy study.

Few studies have examined the influence of short-term stress on neural networks underlying impulsivity in reward/punishment behavior. The influence of short-term stress on neural networks in a sample of female participants was investigated. Participants in the experimental group first completed a speech task intended to induce stress. Next, all participants performed a reward (R)/punishment (P) Go/NoGo task, while near-infrared spectroscopy was used to assess brain activation. Results indicated that Δdeoxy-Hb in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex increased in the R condition compared to the P condition. Moreover, false alarm reaction times during the R condition increased in the experimental group compared to the control group. Also, commission errors in the control group increased significantly in the R condition compared to the P condition. These results suggest that individuals make more careful and adaptive actions to obtain rewards when exposed to short-term stress. Long-term and short-term stress appear to have different influences on human reward-based decision making. In the future, fMRI can be used to precisely examine the possible impulsivity-related changes in functional connectivity caused by short-term stress.

Influence of Positive and Threatened Awe on the Attitude Toward Norm Violations.

Awe is an emotional response to vast stimuli needing for accommodation. Although several studies have revealed that awe led to more ethical attitudes toward one's own behavior and to generosity toward people in general, it is unclear whether and how the two types of awe-positive and threatened-influence one's attitude toward others' social norm violations. In the current study, we examined the influence of these types of awe on tolerance toward deviators' behavior by using a pre-post design and a scenario task within the Japanese population. The findings indicated that positive awe increased the tolerance of others' norm violations, while threatening awe did not.

The influence of cognitive load on maternal postural sway and heart rate in response to infant vocalizations.

Infants communicate their emotions to their caregivers through cries and laughter. Recent work suggests that adaptive parenting requires cognitive regulation of intuitive behaviors toward infants' signals. In this study, we examined the effects of cognitive regulation on mothers' unconscious behavioral and cardiac responses to infant cries and laughs. In all, 55 mothers took part in this study. To manipulate cognitive load, mothers were asked to memorize alphabet characters (two letters in the low cognitive load condition and eight in the high cognitive load condition). Then, they heard infant vocalizations (cries or laughs) for 6 s. During this time, we measured mothers' behavioral (center of pressure, an index of approach-avoidance behavior) and physiological (heart rate) responses. Regardless of vocalization type (infant cries or laughs), high cognitive load increased mothers' forward movement toward the infant sounds as well as mothers' heart rate. These findings advance our understanding of the link between executive function and maternal response to infant signals by utilizing postural and physiological measures of maternal response during memory tasks that require cognitive resources.

Relationship between oxytocin and maternal approach behaviors to infants' vocalizations.

Infants communicate their emotions to caregivers mainly through vocalizations. Research has shown that maternal oxytocin levels relate to adaptive parenting; however, little empirical research exists regarding the effects of endogenous oxytocin levels on maternal responses to infant vocalizations. Thus, in this study, we examined the relationship between mothers' salivary oxytocin levels, subjective feelings, and behavioral response to infants' emotional vocalizations. Additionally, we examined the relationship between psychological traits and maternal behavioral responses to infant vocalizations. In this study, 39 mothers were asked to stand on a balance board while listening to infant vocalization stimuli, to measure movements of their center of pressure, an index of approach-avoidance behavior. Sixty infant vocalizations (laughter, crying, and neutral) were presented for 6 â€‹s each. Afterwards, participants were asked to rate their subjective responses to each stimulus (not aroused - aroused, displeased - pleased, not urgent - urgent, and healthy - sick). Maternal oxytocin levels were negatively correlated with anterior movement of the center of pressure in response to infants' crying and babbling vocalizations, though no relationship was found between maternal approach-avoidance behavior toward infant laughter and oxytocin levels. This study indicated that maternal approach behavior toward infant vocalizations varies as a function of maternal endogenous oxytocin and the type of infant vocalization.

Asymmetric developmental change regarding the effect of reward and punishment on response inhibition.

Reward and punishment influence inhibitory performance, but developmental changes in these effects are not well understood. Our aim was to understand the effects of potential reward gains and losses (as indices of reward and punishment) on response inhibition among children and adolescents. We conducted financial and non-financial go/no-go tasks with 40 boys (8- to 15-year-olds). Participants gained or lost money depending on their performance on the financial task, and score rankings were compared to participants on the non-financial task. We found that adolescents' inhibitory control, as reflected in their reaction times when they made inhibitory errors, was lower in the reward-present condition than in the reward-absent condition, although accuracy was higher when the reward was available for all participants. Additionally, inhibitory control, specifically among adolescents, was higher for financial feedback than for non-financial feedback. These results suggest that the effects of reward and feedback type on motor impulsivity differ as a function of developmental stage. We discuss the theoretical implications of the present findings in terms of the interaction between emotional feedback and response inhibition among children and adolescents.

Differential Effects of Infant Vocalizations on Approach-Avoidance Postural Movements in Mothers.

Infant vocalization plays a pivotal role in communicating infant mood to parents and thereby motivating parenting responses. Although many psychological and neural responses to infant vocalization have been reported, few studies have examined maternal approach-avoidance behavior in response to infant vocalization. Thus, this research sought to determine how infant emotional vocalization affects maternal behavior. Twenty mothers participated in this behavioral study, all of whom had infants of 24 months old or less. In the experiment, they stood on a Balance Board that collected real-time data regarding center of pressure (COP), while listening to a series of infant vocalizations including cry, laugh, and babbling. They then listened to the same vocalizations for a second time and rated their felt emotions in response to each vocalization. The participants demonstrated significant postural movements of approaching in response to cry stimuli or to stimuli regarded as highly urgent. In contrast, they demonstrated postural movement of avoidance in response to laugh vocalization. These findings suggest that parenting behavior in response to infant emotional vocalization is regulated not by the pleasant-unpleasant axis but by the urgency of the stimulus.