Living in urban areas is the wish of many people. However, with population growth in those areas, quality of life has become a concerning element for achieving sustainable cities. Because quality of life is influenced by the built environment, the st...
In this paper, an analysis of the pedestrian environment based on users’ perceptions is proposed. The specific aim of the study is to discover the aspects mostly influencing the pleasantness of a path in a university campus situated in southern...
19 March 2021
This study aimed to longitudinally analyze the role played by two emotional regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression), through the mediating effect of engagement in pleasant activities during lockdown, in changes in aff...
The galvanic skin response (GSR; also widely known as electrodermal activity (EDA)) is a signal for stress-related studies. Given the sparsity of studies related to the GSR and the variety of devices, this study was conducted at the Human Health Acti...
Affective touch (stroking the skin at velocities between 1 and 10 cm/s) is generally perceived as pleasant. However, this pleasant sensation diminishes with continuous stimulation over several minutes, with substantial individual variability in the h...
This paper investigates how the overall pleasantness of the sound environment of an urban walking trip can be estimated through acoustical measurements along the path. For this purpose, two laboratory experiments were carried out, during which contro...
This study investigated the two distinct perceptions (pleasantness and softness) of deformable stimuli with different degrees of compliance under conditions with and without a contextual task. Three tactile strategies—grasping, pinching, and pr...
Olfactory-induced emotion plays an important role in communication, decision-making, multimedia, and disorder treatment. Using electroencephalogram (EEG) technology, this paper focuses on (1) exploring the possibility of recognizing pleasantness indu...
As taste perception varies between individuals, it might be important in explaining food consumption behavior. Previous studies have focused on sensitivity to the bitter tastant PROP (6-n-propylthiouracil) concerning eating with little attention paid...
Perceived occurrences of soundscape reflect cognitive responses to perceived soundscapes. This research focuses on the relationship between perceived occurrences and pleasantness of soundscape in urban forests, and models these parameters. Soundscape...
Reading fluency depends on the typographic design. Letters can have different shapes that evoke different feelings in the reader and influence reading fluency. Previous studies that explored the link between typeface shape and taste and its impact on...
Considering the widespread issue of distracted eating, our study investigates how cognitive distraction influences the sensory perception of food-related odors among individuals with varying weight statuses. We conducted an exploratory, randomized, a...
Pleasant touching is an important aspect of social interactions that is widely used as a caregiving technique. To address the problems resulting from a lack of available human caregivers, previous research has attempted to develop robots that can per...
22 June 2022
Improving the pleasantness of the policy environment in Central China stimulates economic growth, but it also contains higher risks of pollution. Based on the data of 80 cities in Central China from 2006 to 2018, the entropy method was used to estima...
HRI designers are faced with the task of creating robots that are easy and pleasant to use for the users. The growing body of research in human–robot interaction (HRI) is still mainly focused on technical aspects of the interaction. It lacks defined...
Background/Objectives: Ochronosis is an uncommon metabolic condition caused by a deficiency of homogentisate 1,2-dioxygenase, leading to the accumulation of homogentisic acid (HGA) in connective tissues. This deposition of HGA in the joints can resul...
Visual symmetry has been found to be preferred to asymmetry in a variety of domains and across species. A number of theories propose to explain why symmetry is preferred. In this article, I compare a perceptual bias view, in which symmetry is preferr...
In poetry declamation, the appropriate use of prosody to cause pleasure is essential. Among the prosodic parameters, pause is one of the most effective to engage the listeners and provide them with a pleasant experience. The declamation of three poem...
Slow, gentle stimulation of hairy skin is generally accompanied by hedonic sensations. This phenomenon, also known as (positive) affective touch, is likely to be the basis of affiliative interactions with conspecifics by promoting inter-individual bi...
The main objective of this research was to analyse the active regions when processing dishes with a pleasant (vs. unpleasant) design and the effect of the previously read rational (vs. emotional) description when visualising the dish. The functional...
Background/Objectives: Obesity and insulin resistance (IR) increase the risk of mood disorders, which often manifest during young adulthood. However, neuroelectrophysiological investigations of whether adiposity and IR modify electrocortical activity...
Water quality monitoring is essential to assess and manage anthropogenic eutrophication, especially for coastal estuaries in heavily populated areas. Current monitoring techniques rely on in situ sampling, which can be expensive and limited in spatia...
Many sentiment analysis methods have been proposed recently to evaluate, through the Web, the perceptions of users and their satisfaction with the use of products and services; these approaches have been applied in various fields in which it is neces...
Background. Gymnemic acids, from the plant Gymnema sylvestre (GS), selectively suppress taste responses to sweet compounds without affecting the perception of other taste elements. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of consuming a GS...
7 September 2021
Recovery during yesterday’s leisure time is beneficial for morning recovery, and morning recovery fosters employees’ work engagement, a positive, motivational state associated with job performance. We extended existing research by assuming that both,...
Different psychophysical works have reported that, when a wide range of odors is assessed, the hedonic dimension is the most salient. Hence, pleasantness is the most basic attribute of odor perception. Recent studies suggest that the molecular size o...
The link between emotions and motor function has been known for decades but is still not clarified. The Adaptive Force (AF) describes the neuromuscular capability to adapt to increasing forces and was suggested to be especially vulnerable to interfer...
In electrified vehicles, reduced powertrain noise relative to internal combustion engine vehicles increases the relative prominence of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) sound, thereby increasing the importance of sound-quality improve...
Placebos have often been used to reduce emotional distress but rarely to increase positive feelings. The present study investigated whether a placebo can promote acts of kindness (AoKs) that are associated with emotional well-being. A total of 160 un...
Sustainable strategies that enable development of alternative sustainable novel ingredients for food are needed to ensure adequate resources for food in the future. Determining consumer attitudes and acceptance of novel ingredients is essential for w...
Influencer marketing furthers the goals of relationship marketing. Companies use influencers to advertise their products through social networks such as Instagram. This digital advertising is aimed at shifting the company’s goals from customer...
16 January 2019
Housing complex residents in urban areas are not only confronted with typical noise sources, but also everyday life sounds, e.g., in the yards. Therefore, they might benefit from the increasing interest in soundscape design and acoustic comfort impro...
Background/Objectives: Research on pleasant tactile perception has primarily focused on C-tactile fibers found in hairy skin, with the forearm and face as common study sites. Recent findings of these fibers in hairless skin, such as the palms, have s...
The teaching–learning process, at each educational level, is often an open problem for educators and researchers related to the stated topic. Researchers combine emerging technologies to formulate learning tools in order to understand the abstract co...
Currently, there is a growing demand for flavorings, especially of natural origin. It is worth paying attention to the biotechnological processes of flavor production, characterized by simplicity, high efficiency and relatively low cost. In this stud...
The augmenting acceptance and application of herbal medicine in prevention and treatment of diseases also involve the use of plant essential oils (EOs) through different routes of administration (aromatherapy). Scientific data supporting the efficacy...
8 April 2013
This theoretical paper addresses the cognitive functions via which quiet and in general pleasurable sounds promote and annoying sounds impede health. The article comprises a literature analysis and an interpretation of how the bidirectional influence...
16 September 2020
In this study, a method for predicting the preferred pleasantness induced by different forest environments, represented by virtual photographs, was proposed and evaluated using a novel Anti-Environmental Forest Experience Scale psychometric test. The...
Cochlear implants have been used to restore hearing to more than half a million people around the world. The restored hearing allows most recipients to understand spoken speech without relying on visual cues. While speech comprehension in quiet is ge...
Oats are increasingly popular among consumers and the food industry. While data exist on sensory characteristics of oats as such, previous studies focusing on the pleasantness of oats, and especially investigations of a wide range of oat products by...
In this work, we present a system that generates customized pedestrian routes entirely based on data from OpenStreetMap (OSM). The system enables users to define to what extent they would like the route to have green areas (e.g., parks, squares, tree...
Anxiety disorder is one of the most common neuropsychiatric disorders, and affects many people’s daily activities. Although the pathogenesis and treatments of anxiety disorder have been studied for several decades, the underlying mechanisms rem...
(1) Background: While anticipatory anxiety is well-established in the psychological literature, the specific phenomenon of distress experienced during waiting for positive, rationally certain outcomes remains under-theorized and clinically under-reco...
The unique aroma of ginseng is linked to its recognized mood-enhancing properties. However, the specific aromatic compounds responsible for this effect, as well as the underlying mechanisms across different processed ginseng products, remain unclear....
Limonene, mainly found as a major component in Citrus spp., has been proven to possess a valuable potential as sustainable replacement to synthetic pesticides and food preservatives. This review intends to give a clear overview of the principal emerg...
Background: The sense of taste is involved in food behavior and may drive food choices, likely contributing to obesity. Differences in taste preferences have been reported in normal-weight as compared to obese subjects. Changes in taste perception wi...
11 June 2020
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic causes fear, as its immediate consequences for the public have produced unprecedented challenges for the education and healthcare systems. We aimed to validate the fear of COVID-19 scale (FCoV-19S) and...
Kornél Mundruczó’s film Fehér isten/White God (2014) portrays the human decreed options of mixed breed, abandoned dogs in the streets of Budapest in order to encourage its viewers to rethink their relationship with dogs particularly and animals in ge...
This research explores the enhancement of mechanical properties in material architectures, such as strength-to-weight ratio and resilience, through the inspiration of natural systems. Historically, designs for additive manufacturing have relied on si...
Equine Herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) typically causes mild respiratory disease, but it can also cause late-term abortion, neonatal foal death and neurologic disease. Once a horse is infected, the virus concentrates to local lymphoid tissue, where it bec...
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