The Effect of Simple Melodic Lines on Aesthetic Experience: Brain Response to Structural Manipulations

This fMRI study investigates the effect of melody on aesthetic experience in listeners na \u308\u131ve to formal musical knowledge. Using simple melodic lines, whose syntactic structure was manipulated, we created systematic acoustic dissonance. Two stimulus categories were created: canonical (syntactically \u201ccorrect,\u201d in the Western culture) and modified (made of an altered version of the canonical melodies). The stimuli were presented under two tasks: listening and aesthetic judgment. Data were analyzed as a function of stimulus structure (canonical and modified) and stimulus aesthetics, as appraised by each participant during scanning. The critical contrast modified versus canonical stimuli produced enhanced activation of deep temporal regions, including the parahippocampus, suggesting that melody manipulation induced feelings of unpleasantness in the listeners. This was supported by our behavioral data indicating decreased aesthetic preference for the modified melodies. Medial temporal activation could also have been evoked by stimulus structural novelty determining increased memory load for the modified stimuli. The analysis of melodies judged as beautiful revealed that aesthetic judgment of simple melodies relied on a fine-structural analysis of the stimuli subserved by a left frontal activation and, possibly, on meaning attribution at the charge of right superior temporal sulcus for increasingly pleasurable stimul

Specificity of Esthetic Experience for Artworks: An fMRI Study

In a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, where we investigated the neural correlates of esthetic experience, we found that observing canonical sculptures, relative to sculptures whose proportions had been modified, produced the activation of a network that included the lateral occipital gyrus, precuneus, prefrontal areas, and, most interestingly, the right anterior insula. We interpreted this latter activation as the neural signature underpinning hedonic response during esthetic experience. With the aim of exploring whether this specific hedonic response is also present during the observation of non-art biological stimuli, in the present fMRI study we compared the activations associated with viewing masterpieces of classical sculpture with those produced by the observation of pictures of young athletes. The two stimulus-categories were matched on various factors, including body postures, proportion, and expressed dynamism. The stimuli were presented in two conditions: observation and esthetic judgment. The two stimulus-categories produced a rather similar global activation pattern. Direct comparisons between sculpture and real-body images revealed, however, relevant differences, among which the activation of right antero-dorsal insula during sculptures viewing only. Along with our previous data, this finding suggests that the hedonic state associated with activation of right dorsal anterior insula underpins esthetic experience for artworks

Psychometric Properties of Mind-reading Belief Scale on an Italian Sample and Correlation with the Self-Construal

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the lifespan developing ability to attribute mental states. This ability enables the individual to predict and interpret one's own and others' behavior. In this respect, beliefs about one's own capacity to attribute mental states represent a fundamental component of this construct. The present study aims to compare the unidimensional structure of the Mindreading Belief Scale, evaluating beliefs about personal ToM skills, with an alternative two-factor model, which could better explain the latent structure of the scale outlining the relational nature of the construct through the articulation self-other. Moreover, the relations with self-construal, as a pivotal element for subjective differentiation, were also investigated. Our data support the two-factor model as a better structuring of the pool of original items. Finally, the correlations found with self-construal scales indicate that self-construal is involved in defining beliefs about one's own meta-representational skills

Transdisciplinarietà

Con questo contributo, si tenda di dare una visione trasversale del concetto di transdisciplinarietà, ponendo un particolare accento sull'importanza e la necessità di costruire un dialogo tra diverse discipline che possa permettere, attraverso uno sforzo di integrazione, apertura e umiltà, di osservare i fenomeni umani attraverso molteplici lenti con l'obiettivo di costruire un'unica immagine integrata, quanto più completa e verosimile della realtà

Exploring Responses to Art in Adolescence: A Behavioral and Eye-Tracking Study

Adolescence is a peculiar age mainly characterized by physical and psychological changes that may affect the perception of one's own and others' body. This perceptual peculiarity may influence the way in which bottom-up and top-down processes interact and, consequently, the perception and evaluation of art. This study is aimed at investigating, by means of the eye-tracking technique, the visual explorative behavior of adolescents while looking at paintings. Sixteen color paintings, categorized as dynamic and static, were presented to twenty adolescents; half of the images represented natural environments and half human individuals; all stimuli were displayed under aesthetic and movement judgment tasks. Participants' ratings revealed that, generally, nature images are explicitly evaluated as more appealing than human images. Eye movement data, on the other hand, showed that the human body exerts a strong power in orienting and attracting visual attention and that, in adolescence, it plays a fundamental role during aesthetic experience. In particular, adolescents seem to approach human-content images by giving priority to elements calling forth movement and action, supporting the embodiment theory of aesthetic perception

The Risk-Taking and Self-Harm Inventory for Adolescents: Validation of the Italian Version (RTSHIA-I)

The aim of the present paper is to establish the factorial validity and reliability of the Risk-Taking and Self-Harm Inventory for Adolescents (RTSHIA), proposed by Vrouva and colleagues in 2010, in an Italian sample. The RTSHIA measures both Risk-Taking and Self-Harm behavior in adolescents. We administered the scale to a total of 1292 Italian adolescents from 9th to 12th grade; to verify the validity of the scale, we also assessed emotion regulation and psychopathological traits. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (N = 638) and the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (N = 660) confirmed the original two-factor structure of the RTSHIA (Risk-Taking and Self-Harm). The only differences in the Italian version of the RTSHIA (RTSHIA-I) were that one item was moved from the original Risk-Taking factor to the Italian Self-Harm factor, and another item that was not included in the original RTSHIA is now part of the Risk-Taking factor in the Italian version. The reliability of the RTSHIA-I is also confirmed, and both factors correlate with emotion regulation and externalizing/internalizing traits. Our results suggest that the RTSHIA-I is a useful tool for assessing Risk-Taking and Self-Harm behaviors in Italian adolescents, and the correlational patterns indicate that these behaviors may be related to difficulties in mentalization skills

The bodies "at the forefront": Mentalization, memory, and construction of the self during adolescence

With this contribution, we offer a perspective focused on the mind-body relation in a specific phase of the life span: adolescence. In particular, we look at the complexity of some of the processes involved in the construction of an adult Self, which results from the interaction between experiences from infancy and a changing body during adolescence accompanied by implemented mental and social abilities/possibilities. Our interpretative hypothesis goes back to the construct of mentalization, focusing on the function of implicit bodily memories entwined with infantile experiences as precursors of relational dynamics that are mentalistically mediated. When troubled, these need to be dealt with, particularly during adolescence, when the demanding and inedited quests of the body may represent a hurdle that has to be overcome to achieve the formation of an integrated identity

Neural correlates of direct access trading in a real stock market: An fMRI investigation

Background: While financial decision making has been barely explored, no study has previously investigated the neural correlates of individual decisions made by professional traders involved in real stock market negotiations, using their own financial resources. Aim: We sought to detect how different brain areas are modulated by factors like age, expertise, psychological profile (speculative risk seeking or aversion) and, eventually, size and type (Buy/Sell) of stock negotiations, made through Direct Access Trading (DAT) platforms. Subjects and methods: Twenty male traders underwent fMRI while negotiating in the Italian stock market using their own preferred trading platform. Results: At least 20 decision events were collected during each fMRI session. Risk averse traders performed a lower number of financial transactions with respect to risk seekers, with a lower average economic value, but with a higher rate of filled proposals. Activations were observed in cortical and subcortical areas traditionally involved in decision processes, including the ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC, dlPFC), the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), and dorsal striatum. Regression analysis indicated an important role of age in modulating activation of left NAcc, while traders' expertise was negatively related to activation of vlPFC. High value transactions were associated with a stronger activation of the right PPC when subjects' buy rather than sell. The success of the trading activity, based on a large number of filled transactions, was related with higher activation of vlPFC and dlPFC. Independent of chronological and professional age, traders differed in their attitude to DAT, with distinct brain activity profiles being detectable during fMRI sessions. Those subjects who described themselves as very self-confident, showed a lower or absent activation of both the caudate nucleus and the dlPFC, while more reflexive traders showed greater activation of areas involved in strategic decision making. Discussion: The neural correlates in DAT are similar to those observed in other decision making contexts. Trading is handled as a well-learned automatic behavior by expert traders; for those who mostly rely on heuristics, cognitive effort decreases, and transaction speed increases, but decision efficiency lowers following a poor involvement of the dlPFC

Virtual agents and risk-taking behavior in adolescence : the twofold nature of nudging

Peer pressure can influence risk-taking behavior and it is particularly felt during adolescence. With artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly present in a range of everyday human contexts, including virtual environments, it is fundamental to examine whether AI can have an impact on human’s decision making processes and behavior. By using the balloon analogue risk task (BART) evaluating propensity to take risk, in this study 115 adolescents' risk-taking behavior was measured when playing alone and in the presence of either a robot avatar or human avatar. In the avatar conditions, participants performed the BART while the avatars either 1) verbally incited risk-taking or 2) discouraged risk-taking (experimental tasks). Risk-taking behavior in the BART was assessed in terms of total number of pumps, gain and explosions. Tendency to impulsivity was also evaluated, as well as the effects of age and gender on risky behavior. The main finding showed a significant effect of both avatars on risk-taking tendency, with riskier behavior during incitement than discouragement conditions, with the moderating effect on risk-taking being more pronounced. The results of this study open up new questions in a very sensitive and timely topic and offer various insights into the effect of nudging on adolescents’ behavior in virtual contexts