Mood effects on emotion recognition

Mood affects memory and social judgments. However, findings are inconsistent with regard to how mood affects emotion recognition: For sad moods, general performance decrements in emotion recognition have been reported, as well as an emotion specific bias, such as better recognition of sad facial expressions compared to happy expressions (negative bias). Far less research has been conducted on the influence of happy moods on emotion recognition. We primed 93 participants with happy, sad, or neutral moods and had them perform an emotion recognition task. Results showed a negative bias for participants in sad moods and a positive bias for participants in happy moods. Sad and happy moods hampered the recognition of mood-incongruent expressions; the recognition of mood-congruent expressions was not affected by mood

Zooming into daily life : Within-person associations between physical activity and affect in young adults

Funding The first author was funded by the LEAD Graduate School & Research Network [GSC1028], a project of the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. Acknowledgements We thank Laura Grube, Leona Hellwig, Parvin Nemati, and Sarah Schmid for their study assistance and all the individuals who participated and made this research feasible.Peer reviewedPostprin

Raman focal point on Roman Egyptian blue elucidates disordered cuprorivaite, green glass phase and trace compounds

The discussed comparative analyses of Roman Imperial pigment balls and fragmentary murals unearthed in the ancient cities of Aventicum and Augusta Raurica (Switzerland) by means of Raman microspectroscopy pertain to a predecessor study on trace compounds in Early Medieval Egyptian blue (St. Peter, Gratsch, South Tyrol, Northern Italy). The plethora of newly detected associated minerals of the raw materials surviving the synthesis procedure validate the use of quartz sand matching the composition of sediments transported by the Volturno river into the Gulf of Gaeta (Campania, Southern Italy) with a roasted sulphidic copper ore and a mixed-alkaline plant ash as fluxing agent. Thus, the results corroborate a monopolised pigment production site located in the northern Phlegrean Fields persisting over the first centuries A.D., this in line with statements of the antique Roman writers Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder and recent archaeological evidences. Beyond that, Raman spectra reveal through gradual peak shifts and changes of band width locally divergent process conditions and compositional inhomogeneities provoking crystal lattice disorder in the chromophoric cuprorivaite as well as the formation of a copper-bearing green glass phase, the latter probably in dependency of the concentration of alkali flux, notwithstanding that otherwise solid-state reactions predominate the synthesis

Editorial for the Special Issue “Modern Raman Spectroscopy of Minerals”

Peer Reviewe

Raman Microspectroscopic Imaging of Binder Remnants in Historical Mortars Reveals Processing Conditions

Binder remnants in historical mortars represent a record of the connection between the raw materials that enter the kiln, the process parameters, and the end product of the calcination. Raman microspectroscopy combines high structural sensitivity with micrometre to sub-micrometre spatial resolution and compatibility with conventional thin-sectional samples in an almost unique fashion, making it an interesting complementary extension of the existing methodological arsenal for mortar analysis. Raman spectra are vibrational fingerprints of crystalline and amorphous compounds, and contain marker bands that are specific for minerals and their polymorphic forms. Relative intensities of bands that are related to the same crystalline species change according to crystal orientations, and band shifts can be caused by the incorporation of foreign ions into crystal lattices, as well as stoichiometric changes within solid solution series. Finally, variations in crystallinity affect band widths. These effects are demonstrated based on the analysis of three historical mortar samples: micrometric distribution maps of phases and polymorphs, crystal orientations, and compositional variations of solid solution series of unreacted clinker grains in the Portland cement mortars of two 19th century castings, and the crystallinities of thermal anhydrite clusters in a high-fired medieval gypsum mortar as a measure for the applied burning temperature were successfully acquired.Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftPeer Reviewe

Trace compounds in Early Medieval Egyptian blue carry information on provenance, manufacture, application, and ageing

Only a few scientific evidences for the use of Egyptian blue in Early Medieval wall paintings in Central and Southern Europe have been reported so far. The monochrome blue fragment discussed here belongs to the second church building of St. Peter above Gratsch (South Tyrol, Northern Italy, 5th/6th century A.D.). Beyond cuprorivaite and carbon black (underpainting), 26 accessory minerals down to trace levels were detected by means of Raman microspectroscopy, providing unprecedented insights into the raw materials blend and conversion reactions during preparation, application, and ageing of the pigment. In conjunction with archaeological evidences for the manufacture of Egyptian blue in Cumae and Liternum and the concordant statements of the antique Roman writers Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder, natural impurities of the quartz sand speak for a pigment produced at the northern Phlegrean Fields (Campania, Southern Italy). Chalcocite (and chalcopyrite) suggest the use of a sulphidic copper ore, and water-insoluble salts a mixed-alkaline flux in the form of plant ash. Not fully reacted quartz crystals partly intergrown with cuprorivaite and only minimal traces of silicate glass portend solid-state reactions predominating the chemical reactions during synthesis, while the melting of the raw materials into glass most likely played a negligible role

Gender Effects in Information Processing on a Nonverbal Decoding Task

Women typically outperform men on the ability to assess other people's nonverbal behavior. This difference might occur because women are taught to be more sensitive to emotional and nonverbal cues at a very early age compared to men. As a consequence, women might use a more favorable cognitive processing style than men during nonverbal decoding. The present study investigated whether this gender difference is due to the use of different cognitive information processing styles (global or local). Participants (N = 137) were Swiss undergraduate students that were randomly assigned to either a global (focusing on the whole) or a local (focusing on details) priming of information processing style, or to a control group. They then performed a nonverbal decoding task. Results showed that compared to the control group, local priming had beneficial and global priming detrimental effects for nonverbal decoding accuracy. This was due to an improved performance in men after the local priming; women's performance was not significantly affected by the local priming. Global priming increased nonverbal decoding accuracy in men and decreased performance in women. We conclude that women already use the more beneficial local processing style by default and that men's performance can be boosted when providing them a processing strateg

Aktive Klienten - Aktive Politik? (Wie) Läßt sich dauerhafte Unabhängigkeit von Sozialhilfe erreichen? Ein Literaturbericht

Durch die steigende Zahl der Sozialhilfebeziehenden und die damit verbundene Belastung der kommunalen Haushalte ist die Frage in den Mittelpunkt gerückt, wie Sozialhilfebezug vermieden werden kann und Personen schneller wieder von Sozialhilfe unabhängig werden können. Neben der Frage der Arbeitsfähigkeit spielt dabei immer auch die Frage nach der Arbeitswilligkeit eine Rolle. Dabei wird auch befürchtet, dass die Ausgestaltung der Sozialhilfe (z.B. die Vorschriften über die Anrechnung von Einkommen) den Arbeitsanreiz untergrabe. In der kommunalen Praxis ist hiermit ein Perspektivenwandel von einer eher passiven, auf die Zahlung von Geldleistungen ausgerichteten, zu einer aktivierenden Sozialhilfepolitik verbunden. In diesem Rahmen sind in den letzten Jahren die kommunale Beschäftigungspolitik ausgebaut und Beschäftigungs- und Qualifizierungsmaßnahmen - z.B. im Rahmen der Hilfe zur Arbeit - verstärkt worden. Zugleich wurden neue Konzepte entwickelt und Modellprojekte initiiert. In diesem Arbeitspapier soll auf der Grundlage der vorliegenden Forschungsergebnisse der Frage nachgegangen werden, wie aktiv die Sozialhilfebeziehenden selbst, aber auch die Sozial- und Arbeitsverwaltung in Hinblick auf das Ziel sind, den Sozialhilfebezug zu überwinden. Dazu wird zunächst der bisherige Erkenntnisstand über die Dauer und Dynamik von Sozialhilfebezug zusammengefasst. Im Anschluss daran werden die vorliegenden Ergebnisse zur Wirksamkeit institutioneller Hilfemaßnahmen zum Ausstieg aus der Sozialhilfe dargestellt. --

Happy with a difference, unhappy with an identity: Observers' mood determines processing depth in visual search

Visual search for feature targets was employed to investigate whether the mechanisms underlying visual selective attention are modulated by observers' mood. The effects of induced mood on overall mean reaction times and on changes and repetitions of target-defining features and dimensions across consecutive trials were measured. The results showed that reaction times were significantly slower in the negative than in the positive and neutral mood groups. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that the processing stage that is activated to select visual information in a feature search task is modulated by the observer's mood. In participants with positive or neutral moods, dimension-specific, but no feature-specific, intertrial transition effects were found, suggesting that these observers based their responses on a salience signal coding the most conspicuous display location. Conversely, intertrial effects in observers in a negative mood were feature-specific in nature, suggesting that these participants accessed the feature identity level before respondin

A Global Knowledge Medium as a Virtual Community: The NetAcademy Concept

Taking up the ideas of the ancient Greek concept of Academia, the ”NetAcademy” is aiming at providing a knowledge medium to aid in the creation, integration, reviewing and dissemination of domain-specific knowledge in the scientific community. In pursuit of these goals it is taking full advantage of the unique characteristics and potential of the Internet medium. The NetAcademy is an existing web information system (WIS) which was developed in order to support the building of virtual scientific communities for different research fields