Decoding the neural responses to experiencing disgust and sadness

Being able to classify experienced emotions by identifying distinct neural responses has tremendous value in both fundamental research (e.g. positive psychology, emotion regulation theory) and in applied settings (clinical, healthcare, commercial). We aimed to decode the neural representation of the experience of two discrete emotions: sadness and disgust, devoid of differences in valence and arousal. In a passive viewing paradigm, we showed emotion evoking images from the International Affective Picture System to participants while recording their EEG. We then selected a subset of those images that were distinct in evoking either sadness or disgust (20 for each), yet were indistinguishable on normative valence and arousal. Event-related potential analysis of 69 participants showed differential responses in the N1 and EPN components and a support-vector machine classifier was able to accurately classify (58%) whole-brain EEG patterns of sadness and disgust experiences. These results support and expand on earlier findings that discrete emotions do have differential neural responses that are not caused by differences in valence or arousal

Interkulturelle Begegnung als existentielles Risiko: Ästhetische, historische und gesellschaftliche Aspekte musikalischer Globalisierung

The panel discussion first focuses on the obvious gap between a relatively optimistic perspective on musical globalisation, mainly in view of non-Western popular musics, as a main trend in today’s ethnomusicology and the description of intercultural musical encounter as a difficult, lengthy and self-challenging process as suggested by Hans Zender and most examples from contemporary art music. Gerd Grupe emphasizes that non-Western popular musics include both forms that even out cultural differences by following Western commercial standards and, contrarily, forms that are highly dependent on local lingual or musical codes and thus cannot be transferred to an international realm. To illustrate the »existential« approach of art music composers, Zender quotes the case of Giacinto Scelsi whose music has received a profound influence from Tibetan music. Zender emphasizes that Scelsi has created – after a long period of crisis – a »Third Way« that can be understood from neither a purely European, nor a purely Tibetan perspective. The discussion then centres on the question of which influence Western concepts of history and the dynamics of »progress« have exerted on different traditional and contemporary forms of the world’s musics and to what extent the post-colonial polarisation of a »dynamic« Western culture and »static« non-Western cultures is still virulent in the discussion of these musics today. While Christian Utz emphasizes that many non-Western traditions that were deemed to have been preserved unchanged for many centuries for example the Japanese court music gagaku – have in fact changed considerably over the centuries and have been highly influenced by political and social changes, Peter Revers traces the idea of »making history« back to Friedrich Schlegel and describes it as very influential on the dynamics of Western music history. Andreas Dorschel raises the question, if early 20th century »national« schools and in particular the music of Béla Bartók and Leoš Janáek can be seen as forerunners of trends in non-Western contemporary music that accentuate cultural difference. Christian Utz remarks that despite the fact that the music of Bartók has been a very important model for Asian composers in the process of creating a music independent of Romanticist symphonic clichés, elements of (neo-)nationalism in Bartók’s concept of music make it hard to see it as a model for a new music free of nationalist bias. Responding to a question from the audience, Andreas Dorschel summarizes that turning to music or art of other cultures might indeed be a signal for »weak« moments within a culture, but in turn this »weakness« proves the inner strength to challenge one’s own culture’s fundamental principles whereas discrimination and xenophobia are based on a very different kind of inner weakness where one is merely unable or unwilling to confront the Other

Noradrenergic regulation of cognitive flexibility: No effects of stress, transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation, and atomoxetine on task-switching in humans

Cognitive flexibility allows us to adaptively switch between different responsibilities in important domains of our daily life. Previous work has elucidated the neurochemical basis underlying the ability to switch responses to a previously nonreinforced exemplar and to switch between attentional sets. However, the role of neuromodulators in task switching, the ability to rapidly switch between two or more cognitive tasks afforded by the same stimuli, is still poorly understood. We attempted to fill this gap by manipulating norepinephrine levels using stress manipulation (Study 1a,n= 48; between-group design), transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation at two different intensities (Study 1b,n= 48; sham-controlled between-group design), and pharmacological manipulation (Study 2,n= 24; double-blind crossover design), all of which increased salivary cortisol measures. Participants repeatedly switched between two cognitive tasks (classifying a digit as high/low [Task 1] or as odd/even [Task 2]), depending on the preceding cue. On each trial, a cue indicated the task to be performed. The cue-stimulus interval was varied to manipulate the time to prepare for the switch. Participants showed typical switch costs, which decreased with the time available for preparation. None of the manipulations modulated the size of the switch costs or the preparation effect, as supported by frequentist and Bayesian model comparisons. Task-switching performance reflects a complex mix of cognitive control and bottom-up dynamics of task-set representations. Our findings suggest that norepinephrine does not affect either of these aspects of cognitive flexibility

Neural responses to facial attractiveness: Event-related potentials differentiate between salience and valence effects

We examined the neural correlates of facial attractiveness by presenting pictures of male or female faces (neutral expression) with low/intermediate/high attractiveness to 48 male or female participants while recording their electroencephalogram (EEG). Subjective attractiveness ratings were used to determine the 10% highest, 10% middlemost, and 10% lowest rated faces for each individual participant to allow for high contrast comparisons. These were then split into preferred and dispreferred gender categories. ERP components P1, N1, P2, N2, early posterior negativity (EPN), P300 and late positive potential (LPP) (up until 3000 ms post-stimulus), and the face specific N170 were analysed. A salience effect (attractive/unattractive > intermediate) in an early LPP interval (450–850 ms) and a long-lasting valence related effect (attractive > unattractive) in a late LPP interval (1000–3000 ms) were elicited by the preferred gender faces but not by the dispreferred gender faces. Multi-variate pattern analysis (MVPA)-classifications on whole-brain single-trial EEG patterns further confirmed these salience and valence effects. It is concluded that, facial attractiveness elicits neural responses that are indicative of valenced experiences, but only if these faces are considered relevant. These experiences take time to develop and last well beyond the interval that is commonly explored

Noradrenergic regulation of cognitive flexibility:No effects of stress, transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation, and atomoxetine on task-switching in humans

Cognitive flexibility allows us to adaptively switch between different responsibilities in important domains of our daily life. Previous work has elucidated the neurochemical basis underlying the ability to switch responses to a previously nonreinforced exemplar and to switch between attentional sets. However, the role of neuromodulators in task switching, the ability to rapidly switch between two or more cognitive tasks afforded by the same stimuli, is still poorly understood. We attempted to fill this gap by manipulating norepinephrine levels using stress manipulation (Study 1a,n= 48; between-group design), transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation at two different intensities (Study 1b,n= 48; sham-controlled between-group design), and pharmacological manipulation (Study 2,n= 24; double-blind crossover design), all of which increased salivary cortisol measures. Participants repeatedly switched between two cognitive tasks (classifying a digit as high/low [Task 1] or as odd/even [Task 2]), depending on the preceding cue. On each trial, a cue indicated the task to be performed. The cue-stimulus interval was varied to manipulate the time to prepare for the switch. Participants showed typical switch costs, which decreased with the time available for preparation. None of the manipulations modulated the size of the switch costs or the preparation effect, as supported by frequentist and Bayesian model comparisons. Task-switching performance reflects a complex mix of cognitive control and bottom-up dynamics of task-set representations. Our findings suggest that norepinephrine does not affect either of these aspects of cognitive flexibility

Interkulturelle Begegnung als existentielles Risiko: Ästhetische, historische und gesellschaftliche Aspekte musikalischer Globalisierung

The panel discussion first focuses on the obvious gap between a relatively optimistic perspective on musical globalisation, mainly in view of non-Western popular musics, as a main trend in today’s ethnomusicology and the description of intercultural musical encounter as a difficult, lengthy and self-challenging process as suggested by Hans Zender and most examples from contemporary art music. Gerd Grupe emphasizes that non-Western popular musics include both forms that even out cultural differences by following Western commercial standards and, contrarily, forms that are highly dependent on local lingual or musical codes and thus cannot be transferred to an international realm. To illustrate the »existential« approach of art music composers, Zender quotes the case of Giacinto Scelsi whose music has received a profound influence from Tibetan music. Zender emphasizes that Scelsi has created – after a long period of crisis – a »Third Way« that can be understood from neither a purely European, nor a purely Tibetan perspective. The discussion then centres on the question of which influence Western concepts of history and the dynamics of »progress« have exerted on different traditional and contemporary forms of the world’s musics and to what extent the post-colonial polarisation of a »dynamic« Western culture and »static« non-Western cultures is still virulent in the discussion of these musics today. While Christian Utz emphasizes that many non-Western traditions that were deemed to have been preserved unchanged for many centuries for example the Japanese court music gagaku – have in fact changed considerably over the centuries and have been highly influenced by political and social changes, Peter Revers traces the idea of »making history« back to Friedrich Schlegel and describes it as very influential on the dynamics of Western music history. Andreas Dorschel raises the question, if early 20th century »national« schools and in particular the music of Béla Bartók and Leoš Janáek can be seen as forerunners of trends in non-Western contemporary music that accentuate cultural difference. Christian Utz remarks that despite the fact that the music of Bartók has been a very important model for Asian composers in the process of creating a music independent of Romanticist symphonic clichés, elements of (neo-)nationalism in Bartók’s concept of music make it hard to see it as a model for a new music free of nationalist bias. Responding to a question from the audience, Andreas Dorschel summarizes that turning to music or art of other cultures might indeed be a signal for »weak« moments within a culture, but in turn this »weakness« proves the inner strength to challenge one’s own culture’s fundamental principles whereas discrimination and xenophobia are based on a very different kind of inner weakness where one is merely unable or unwilling to confront the Other

Interkulturelle Begegnung als existentielles Risiko: Ästhetische, historische und gesellschaftliche Aspekte musikalischer Globalisierung

The panel discussion first focuses on the obvious gap between a relatively optimistic perspective on musical globalisation, mainly in view of non-Western popular musics, as a main trend in today’s ethnomusicology and the description of intercultural musical encounter as a difficult, lengthy and self-challenging process as suggested by Hans Zender and most examples from contemporary art music. Gerd Grupe emphasizes that non-Western popular musics include both forms that even out cultural differences by following Western commercial standards and, contrarily, forms that are highly dependent on local lingual or musical codes and thus cannot be transferred to an international realm. To illustrate the »existential« approach of art music composers, Zender quotes the case of Giacinto Scelsi whose music has received a profound influence from Tibetan music. Zender emphasizes that Scelsi has created – after a long period of crisis – a »Third Way« that can be understood from neither a purely European, nor a purely Tibetan perspective. The discussion then centres on the question of which influence Western concepts of history and the dynamics of »progress« have exerted on different traditional and contemporary forms of the world’s musics and to what extent the post-colonial polarisation of a »dynamic« Western culture and »static« non-Western cultures is still virulent in the discussion of these musics today. While Christian Utz emphasizes that many non-Western traditions that were deemed to have been preserved unchanged for many centuries for example the Japanese court music gagaku – have in fact changed considerably over the centuries and have been highly influenced by political and social changes, Peter Revers traces the idea of »making history« back to Friedrich Schlegel and describes it as very influential on the dynamics of Western music history. Andreas Dorschel raises the question, if early 20th century »national« schools and in particular the music of Béla Bartók and Leoš Janáek can be seen as forerunners of trends in non-Western contemporary music that accentuate cultural difference. Christian Utz remarks that despite the fact that the music of Bartók has been a very important model for Asian composers in the process of creating a music independent of Romanticist symphonic clichés, elements of (neo-)nationalism in Bartók’s concept of music make it hard to see it as a model for a new music free of nationalist bias. Responding to a question from the audience, Andreas Dorschel summarizes that turning to music or art of other cultures might indeed be a signal for »weak« moments within a culture, but in turn this »weakness« proves the inner strength to challenge one’s own culture’s fundamental principles whereas discrimination and xenophobia are based on a very different kind of inner weakness where one is merely unable or unwilling to confront the Other

EEG responses to disgust and sadness evoking IAPS images with ERP analysis and SVM classification

EEG data was recorded while 80 participants passively viewed 120 emotion eliciting IAPS images. We selected 20 disgust and 20 sadness eliciting images (validation experiment included) that were indistinguishable by SVM classification on their normative valence and arousal ratings (classification script included). We performed cluster based ERP analyses (script included) and single-trial SVM classification based on the whole scalp 1 second EEG patterns (script included)

EEG responses to facial attractiveness, with ERP cluster analysis and MVPA classification

EEG data was recorded while 80 participants viewed 240 images of faces with varying levels of attractiveness. Participants indicated a subjective attractiveness rating following each image. These ratings were used to create subsets of the 10% highest, 10% lowest, and 10% middlemost rated images on the participant level. We performed cluster based ERP analyses (script included) and MVPA classification based on the whole scalp 3 second EEG patterns (script included)