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This psychophysiological study is the first to examine the relationship between emotional tears and emotional piloerection (i.e., goosebumps). Although both phenomena have been related to peak states of being moved, details about their temporal occurrence and the associated levels of physiological arousal have remained unknown. In our study, we used emotionally powerful film scenes that were self-selected by participants. Our findings show that even within peak moments of emotional arousal, a gradation of intensity is possible. The overlap of tears and goosebumps signifies a maximal climax within peak moments. On the side of the stimulus, we found that displays of prosocial behavior play a crucial role in the elicitation of tears and goosebumps. Finally, based on the results of a formal film analysis of the tears-eliciting clips provided by our participants, as compared to randomly extracted, equally long control clips from the same films, we show how the technical and artistic making of the clips was optimized for the display of social interaction and emotional expressions.
Our response to fictional cues is often as emotional as to occurrences in real life. Such emotional responses do not mean that each time we mistake fiction for reality; rather they are affected by our innate social behaviors and by complex neural structures. Some responses, as for instance fright or pity, take place spontaneously, comparably to a reflex act. Furthermore, emotions can be evoked by means of thoughts: some specific sorts of texts rouse the reader´s ability to share in the emotional experiences of a fictional character. Other emotions can refer to a work of art as a whole or to some implicit components of meaning or allusions to facts of the case external to the text. Further ways of emotional engagement are pleasure and suspense, the affective basic processes of each reception of art or any media.
Stories can elicit powerful emotions. A key emotional response to narrative plots (e.g., novels, movies, etc.) is suspense. Suspense appears to build on basic aspects of human cognition such as processes of expectation, anticipation, and prediction. However, the neural processes underlying emotional experiences of suspense have not been previously investigated. We acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data while participants read a suspenseful literary text (E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman") subdivided into short text passages. Individual ratings of experienced suspense obtained after each text passage were found to be related to activation in the medial frontal cortex, bilateral frontal regions (along the inferior frontal sulcus), lateral premotor cortex, as well as posterior temporal and temporo-parietal areas. The results indicate that the emotional experience of suspense depends on brain areas associated with social cognition and predictive inference.
This study explored the organization of the semantic field and the conceptual structure of moving experiences by investigating German-language expressions referring to the emotional state of being moved. We used present and past participles of eight psychological verbs as primes in a free word-association task, as these grammatical forms place their conceptual focus on the eliciting situation and on the felt emotional state, respectively. By applying a taxonomy of basic knowledge types and computing the Cognitive Salience Index, we identified joy and sadness as key emotional ingredients of being moved, and significant life events and art experiences as main elicitors of this emotional state. Metric multidimensional scaling analyses of the semantic field revealed that the core terms designate a cluster of emotional states characterized by low degrees of arousal and slightly positive valence, the latter due to a nearly balanced representation of positive and negative elements in the conceptual structure of being moved.
Emotional competence has an important influence on development in school. We hypothesized that reading and discussing children’s books with emotional content increases children’s emotional competence. To examine this assumption, we developed a literature-based intervention, named READING and FEELING, and tested it on 104 second and third graders in their after-school care center. Children who attended the same care center but did not participate in the emotion-centered literary program formed the control group (n = 104). Our goal was to promote emotional competence and to evaluate the effectiveness of the READING and FEELING program. Emotional competence variables were measured prior to the intervention and 9 weeks later, at the end of the program. Results revealed significant improvements in the emotional vocabulary, explicit emotional knowledge, and recognition of masked feelings. Regarding the treatment effect for detecting masked feelings, we found that boys benefited significantly more than girls. These findings underscore the assumption that children’s literature is an appropriate vehicle to support the development of emotional competence in middle childhood.
Als Sohn des Pianisten und Musikwissenschaftlers Ludvík Kundera, einem Schüler von Leoš Janáček, hat Milan Kundera sowohl in seinen Essays als auch in seinen literarischen Fiktionen zahlreiche Seiten der Musik gewidmet, insbesondere der tschechischen. In seinem ersten Roman "Der Scherz" ("Žert", 1968) ist die tschechische Volksmusik der Leitfaden des gesamten Werkes: Sie wird zum Gegenstand poetischer und sogar technischer Beschreibungen (mit Notenauszügen ausgestattet) durch die Protagonisten, sowie zum gemeinschaftsstiftenden Zeichen, das Emotionen kollektiv auszulösen vermag. Kundera zeigt aber auch die Gefahren der über die Musik erreichten Emotionalisierung, wenn sie im Kontext des kommunistischen Regimes als Mittel zur Manipulation des Volkes dient: anstatt Menschen zu einen, entwickelt die Musik ihre destruktive Kraft, die bis zur Ausgrenzung führen kann. Wie es der Schriftsteller in "Testaments trahis" ausdrückt, kann die Lyrik fester Bestandteil der totalitären Welt sein und somit Traumata verursachen.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of body developed by Luhmann's systems theory. Privileged places where one can look for the body will be the interpenetration between human beings and the concept of socialization. Another fundamental problem is the relationship between semantics and body, although the most explicit presence of the body in this theory comes with the concept of symbiotic mechanisms or symbols. The last place where this enquiry will look for a bodily reference are emotions, which were highly ignored by Luhmann. Alternative approaches explored in the paper are treating the body as a structure, as a medium or as an internal environment.
Teaching empathy and emotions : J. M. Coetzee's "The lives of animals" and human-animal studies
(2022)
In "Teaching Empathy and Emotions: J. M. Coetzee's 'The Lives of Animals' and Human-Animal Studies," Alexandra Böhm focuses on one of the most influential novels in the field of HAS. In her article, she delineates the two main difficulties in teaching Coetzee's text: firstly, the text's protagonist, fierce and fearless Australian author Elizabeth Costello, is often less-than-lovable and offers few grounds for identification; secondly, the text's multilayered structure further problematizes the authorial voice. However, by focusing on Costello's reassessment of emotion and empathy, Böhm convincingly demonstrates that Coetzee's text offers possibilities for understanding the key concepts of HAS, such as animal agency, alterity, and the necessity of assuming a non-anthropocentric perspective. In the narrative, Costello employs empathy in her approach to animals, but is this also true of the metadiegetic level of Coetzee's text? Does the text itself suggest how to teach empathy? Alexandra Böhm demonstrates that it is possible to elicit affective responses to these questions through emotion journals and role-playing.