Search Results (8)

Background/Objectives: Negative emotional inertia describes the extent to which a prior emotional state can predict the subsequent one, and it is considered a significant indicator of psychological maladjustment that has several negative consequences in the workplace. The current study tested a theoretical model in which the inertia of negative emotions is moderated by regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs (RESE) in managing negative affects across workers of different ages. Specifically, we hypothesized that RESE moderates the relation between negative emotions at consecutive time points, reducing their persistence, and that age would influence this relation, with older workers relying less on this resource than younger ones. Methods: Participants were 221 workers (57.8% females) exposed to social work stressors who reported their affectivity every evening for 31 consecutive days. We analyzed the data using dynamic structural equation models (DSEM), which enable examining within-person time series trends while estimating individual differences therein. Results/Conclusions: In line with our predictions, results suggest that emotional self-efficacy is a key personal resource that might be able to buffer individuals from emotional stasis, a resource primarily useful for younger workers who rely less on actual emotional regulation expertise than older adults. Full article

Background: Although the Profile of Mood States has been proposed by the Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials (IMMPACT) to measure emotional functioning in chronic pain patients, it has not yet been validated in these patients. Objective: To confirm the factor structure and internal consistency of the Shortened Version of the Profile of Mood States (37 items) in patients with chronic pain. Methods: A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the theoretical structure of six factors that result in a Total Mood Disturbance episode: Tension–Anxiety (six items), Depression–Dejection (eight items), Anger–Hostility (seven items), Vigor–Activity (six items), Fatigue–Inertia (five items), and Confusion–Bewilderment (five items). Participants: A total of 588 patients with chronic pain from Spanish primary care health and community centers completed the questionnaire. Results: The factors presented adequate reliability coefficients, McDonald’s Omega (ω) between 0.77 and 0.91, and appropriate average discrimination indexes (D), ranging from 0.35 to 0.67. The Total Mood Disturbance yielded excellent results, ω = 0.95, D = 0.61. The original structure was confirmed, ECVI = 4.361 (saturated ECVI = 2.395; independent ECVI = 21.855); RMSEA = 0.070, 90% CI [0.067, 0.072]; GFI = 0.974; AGFI = 0.971; CFI = 0.853; NFI = 0.812; and NNFI = 0.843. Conclusions: The Shortened Version of the Profile of Mood States has been proven to be a valid and reliable measure of emotional functioning in chronic pain patients. Full article

Speech Emotion Recognition (SER) plays a significant role in the field of Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) with a wide range of applications. However, there are still some issues in practical application. One of the issues is the difference between emotional expression amongst various individuals, and another is that some indistinguishable emotions may reduce the stability of the SER system. In this paper, we propose a multi-layer hybrid fuzzy support vector machine (MLHF-SVM) model, which includes three layers: feature extraction layer, pre-classification layer, and classification layer. The MLHF-SVM model solves the above-mentioned issues by fuzzy c-means (FCM) based on identification information of human and multi-layer SVM classifiers, respectively. In addition, to overcome the weakness that FCM tends to fall into local minima, an improved natural exponential inertia weight particle swarm optimization (IEPSO) algorithm is proposed and integrated with fuzzy c-means for optimization. Moreover, in the feature extraction layer, non-personalized features and personalized features are combined to improve accuracy. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model, all emotions in three popular datasets are used for simulation. The results show that this model can effectively improve the success rate of classification and the maximum value of a single emotion recognition rate is 97.67% on the EmoDB dataset. Full article

The neonatal response to stress was reported to be related to the type of delivery, that is elective or emergency cesarean sections (ELCS and EMCS, respectively). Nitric oxide (NO) is also reported to be related to uterine inertia, and high levels of NO metabolites (NOs) are associated with physical and emotional stress. The study aimed to assess the concentrations of cortisol (C) and NOs in the amniotic fluid of puppies delivered by ELCS or EMCS. In total, 32 puppies were delivered by ELCS and 22 by EMCS. ANCOVA showed an effect of the ELCS vs. EMCS on both amniotic NOs (p < 0.001) and C (p < 0.001) concentrations. Lower amniotic C concentrations were found at increasing Apgar score (p < 0.001). Higher amniotic NOs concentrations were associated to increasing mother’s parity (p < 0.001), puppies’ birthweight (p < 0.001), and time of labor within the EMCS group (p < 0.05). A positive correlation between birthweight and amniotic NOs concentrations was also found (p < 0.05) in the EMCS group. Due to the possible concurrence of several compartments (maternal, maybe placental, and fetal) to the final amniotic fluid composition, the definition of the role played by the three compartments in the higher C and NOs concentrations found in amniotic fluids collected from puppies delivered by EMCS than ELCS needs further clarification. Full article

Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals have been widely used in emotion recognition. However, the current EEG-based emotion recognition has low accuracy of emotion classification, and its real-time application is limited. In order to address these issues, in this paper, we proposed an improved feature selection algorithm to recognize subjects’ emotion states based on EEG signal, and combined this feature selection method to design an online emotion recognition brain-computer interface (BCI) system. Specifically, first, different dimensional features from the time-domain, frequency domain, and time-frequency domain were extracted. Then, a modified particle swarm optimization (PSO) method with multi-stage linearly-decreasing inertia weight (MLDW) was purposed for feature selection. The MLDW algorithm can be used to easily refine the process of decreasing the inertia weight. Finally, the emotion types were classified by the support vector machine classifier. We extracted different features from the EEG data in the DEAP data set collected by 32 subjects to perform two offline experiments. Our results showed that the average accuracy of four-class emotion recognition reached 76.67%. Compared with the latest benchmark, our proposed MLDW-PSO feature selection improves the accuracy of EEG-based emotion recognition. To further validate the efficiency of the MLDW-PSO feature selection method, we developed an online two-class emotion recognition system evoked by Chinese videos, which achieved good performance for 10 healthy subjects with an average accuracy of 89.5%. The effectiveness of our method was thus demonstrated. Full article

The present study investigated changes in autonomic nervous system activity and emotions after a short (2 h) forest bathing program in the Xitou Nature Education Area (XNEA), Taiwan. One hundred and twenty-eight (60.0 ± 7.44 years) middle-aged and elderly participants were recruited. Physiological responses, pulse rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), and psychological indices were measured before and after the program. We observed that pulse rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure were significantly lower after the program, which indicated physiological benefits from stress recovery. The Profile of Mood States negative mood subscale scores of “tension-anxiety”, “anger-hostility”, “fatigue-inertia”, “depression-dejection”, and “confusion-bewilderment” were significantly lower, whereas the positive mood subscale score of “vigor-activity” was higher. Furthermore, participants exhibited significantly lower anxiety levels according to the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. However, changes in sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve activity were nonsignificant. Our study determined that the short forest bathing program is a promising therapeutic method for enhancing heart rate and blood pressure functions as well as an effective psychological relaxation strategy for middle-aged and elderly individuals. Full article

In children diagnosed with pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD), disturbances in the quality of sleep and wakefulness are prominent. A novel phenotype of PBD called Fear of Harm (FOH) associated with separation anxiety and aggressive obsessions is associated with sleep onset insomnia, parasomnias (nightmares, night-terrors, enuresis), REM sleep-related problems, and morning sleep inertia. Children with FOH often experience thermal discomfort (e.g., feeling hot, excessive sweating) in neutral ambient temperature conditions, as well as no discomfort during exposure to the extreme cold, and alternate noticeably between being excessively hot in the evening and cold in the morning. We hypothesized that these sleep- and temperature-related symptoms were overt symptoms of an impaired ability to dissipate heat, particularly in the evening hours near the time of sleep onset. We measured sleep/wake variables using actigraphy, and nocturnal skin temperature variables using thermal patches and a wireless device, and compared these data between children with PBD/FOH and a control sample of healthy children. The results are suggestive of a thermoregulatory dysfunction that is associated with sleep onset difficulties. Further, they are consistent with our hypothesis that alterations in neural circuitry common to thermoregulation and emotion regulation underlie affective and behavioral symptoms of the FOH phenotype. Full article

The aim of the study was to evaluate associations of emotional state and quality of life with lipid concentration, duration of the disease, and the way of treating the disease in males and females with type 2 diabetes mellitus. A total of 53 persons with type 2 diabetes mellitus (27 males and 26 females; mean age, 58.7±8.9 years) and 56 healthy persons (26 males and 30 females; mean age, 54.7±8.3 years) participated in the study. Emotional state was evaluated by means of Profile of Mood State and quality of life by means of WHO Brief Quality of Life Questionnaire. Emotional state and quality of life were significantly worse, tension-anxiety and fatigue-inertia were significantly higher, vigor-activity was significantly lower in male patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus than in healthy males. In females, no significant differences in emotional state and quality of life comparing type 2 diabetes mellitus group and controls were detected. In females with type 2 diabetes mellitus, emotional state and quality of life were significantly better, scores of tension-anxiety, depression dejection, anger-hostility, and fatigue-inertia were significantly lower, and score of vigor-activity was significantly higher than in males with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Some significant correlations were found. In males, vigor-activity correlated with total cholesterol level and negatively correlated with triglyceride level. In females, significant correlations were found between scores of emotional state (tension-anxiety, depression-dejection, confusion-bewilderment, and total score of emotional state) and lipid levels (total cholesterol, triglyceride, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels). There were no significant associations of emotional state and quality of life with duration of the disease in males and females with type 2 diabetes mellitus. No significant differences in emotional state and quality of life were found between males and females with type 2 diabetes mellitus, who were treated with oral antidiabetic preparations and insulin preparations. Full article