Psychopathy is a rare and unique disorder, primarily associated with an emotional deficiency and an inclination towards violent antisocial behavior. Among the various symptoms, the affective experience of the incapacity for love has received little empirical attention, despite having been established as one of Cleckley's 16 classic characteristics. Moreover, the role of physiological responding in their romantic experiences has yet to be examined. The proposed study examined physiological reactivity (i.e., heart rate, HR; skin conductance, SC) as a mediator and moderator in the relationship between psychopathic features and romantic experiences (i.e., passionate love, companionate love, Ludus love, relationship satisfaction, relationship history) in college men. As hypothesized, physiological reactivity mediated and moderated the relationship between psychopathic features and romantic experiences. Specifically, low physiological arousal for the partner partially mediated the relationship between psychopathic features and passionate love. Also, it was found that the interaction between low physiological arousal for the significant other and high physiological arousal for the opposite-sex friend moderates the relationship between psychopathic features and deficient romantic experiences. By gaining a better understanding of the impact on their romantic experiences, this study is intended to contribute to improved identification and assessment of psychopathic men. / Ph. D.

It is well documented that the communication patterns of distressed couples are characterized by more negative and fewer positive behaviors. It has also been postulated that there is an association between physiological arousal and negative behaviors. According to this theory, as individuals become increasingly aroused, the number of negative behaviors also increases. This study explored the relationship between physiological arousal and marital communication. The three couples participating in the study received intensive biofeedback training with the hypothesis that an ability to control physiological arousal would result in improved marital communications. The Rapid Couples Interaction Scoring System was employed as a measurement of overt behavior, and physiological arousal was measured by electromyographic levels. The findings of this study suggest that, for some, biofeedback training is an effective intervention to improve marital communications.

Attractiveness is a phenomenon that is highly prioritised in society and has a variety of implications on the health, mental health, occupational, judicial and economic spheres. The media is known to have an impact on how certain norms, expectations and beliefs in society are formed, including, but not limited to, the creation of beauty ideals. Despite this importance, little research has been done on how men have come to perceive the attractiveness of women as a consequence of daily exposure to the media and photoshopped images of women. This study therefore attempts to address this gap in research by studying the impact that media and the use of photoshopping might have on males' perception of female attractiveness. A mixed-method approach was followed. Accordingly, both qualitative and quantitative data was collected during this study. The quantitative data entailed a comparison of heart rate, breathing rate, heart rate variability and viewing time for 24 participants between non-photoshopped and photoshopped images. The qualitative section comprised eye tracking data and a questionnaire for 25 male participants on the topic of media, photoshopping, features of attractiveness and what impact these three constructs might have on each other. The results indicate that on a physiological level there are limited and sporadic changes in how men view, and respond to, photoshopped images of women. Despite this finding, most participants report that on a psychological level media and photoshopping has an impact on their perceptions of beauty and their experience of interpersonal attraction. / Mini Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Psychology / MA / Unrestricted

People with aphasia are known to have poor word retrieval abilities in communicative tasks. It has also been reported that they have lower, non-optimal levels of physiological arousal, which may cause lower attention levels therefore contributing to poor performance on linguistic tasks. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between physiological arousal and word retrieval in adults with aphasia and neurotypical adults when presented with emotional stimuli within a confrontational naming task. Participants included 6 people with aphasia and 15 neurotypical controls. All participants completed a confrontational naming task within 3 emotional conditions (neutral, positive, negative) and physiological measures (Heart Rate Variability, Skin Conductance) were taken simultaneously. No statistically significant results were found; however, numerical trends were identified in the data that may provide direction when designing future studies.

Many neurological disorders are characterized by uncontrolled or non-volitional cursing. The social stigma of coprophenomena can be immense, particularly for young adults with traumatic brain injury or Tourette Syndrome. Little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying non-volitional cursing, and there is no known treatment. To this end, I propose a mechanism that will prove useful as a guiding theoretical framework for modeling different types of cursing. My overarching hypothesis is that uncontrolled cursing is the breakdown of a feedback loop between physiological arousal and controlled language output. I operationalize the hypothesis that cursing occurs in the context of physiological arousal and the act of cursing further modulates arousal. This thesis will illustrate how the model predicts different patterns of impairment across different disorders of emotion and behavior dysregulation. I will test predictions of the model in two experiments both involving manipulations of arousal and linguistic content. In Experiment 1, I compare the arousal of the lexical environment of curse words to the that of randomly selected non-curse words in a large natural language corpus. In Experiment 2, I use a verbal fluency paradigm to compare physiological arousal and subsequent language production during a cursing task vs. a non-cursing task. / Communication Sciences

This quantitative study investigated the effect of client self-disclosure on the physiological arousal of the therapist and subsequent ratings of the therapeutic alliance, session smoothness, and session depth. Three therapists and 10 clients participated in a 40-minute videotaped therapy session while being attached to sensors that measured heart rate and skin conductance. The participants completed self-report questionnaires designed to assess the therapeutic alliance and session smoothness and depth immediately following the therapy session. The videotaped therapy sessions were later transcribed and coded by two independent coders for the occurrence of client self-disclosure. Correlation analyses were utilized to determine whether or not a relationship existed between client self-disclosure and the physiological arousal of the therapist. No significant relationships were found to exist between client self-disclosure and the physiological arousal of the therapist. Positive correlations were found to exist between the occurrence of client self-disclosure and the physiological arousal of the therapist as well as between the occurrence of client self-disclosure and the therapeutic alliance. The physiological arousal of the therapist was also found to be positively correlated with the strength of the therapeutic alliance.

Previous research suggests that attentional deficits could be the underlying cause of language impairments in people with aphasia (PWA) and that behavioral engagement ratings can be an accurate way to measure attention to specific tasks. Previous research also suggests that PWA have lower levels of behavioral engagement than neurologically healthy adults. Participants in the present study included 9 PWA and 18 neurologically healthy adults. This was an exploratory study investigating the relationships and differences between behavioral engagement and physiological measures, perceived arousal, and naming accuracy and response time in PWA and neurologically healthy adults. Participants completed a confrontational naming task while physiological measures (heart rate, heart rate variability, and skin conductance) were taken simultaneously. Subsequent video footage was used to rate participants' behavioral engagement (i.e., how engaged the participant was in the naming task). In general, PWA had lower behavioral engagement ratings of attention than neurotypical adults. Significant correlations were found between behavioral engagement ratings of attention, naming response time, and naming accuracy. No statistical significance was found between behavioral engagement ratings of attention and heart rate, heart rate variability, and skin conductance. Further research is needed to support these findings.

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Musik begleitet uns seit vielen Jahrtausenden und ist ein Teil der menschlichen Entwicklungsgeschichte. Mehr über den Ursprung und die Bedeutung von Musik zu wissen bedeutet mehr über uns selbst zu wissen. Die meisten Menschen mögen Musik und für viele ist es eine der wichtigsten Freizeitbeschäftigungen in ihrem Leben. Doch unterschiedliche Menschen mögen unterschiedliche Musik, und die Bindung an Musik kann stark oder schwach sein. Dieses als Musikpräferenz bezeichnete Phänomen hat in der Vergangenheit zahlreiche Studien innerhalb der Musikpsychologie angeregt, die eine Fülle von Variablen untersucht haben, welche das Zustandekommen unterschiedlicher musikalischer Vorlieben erklären helfen. Diese Forschungsergebnisse sind jedoch bis heute lückenhaft und konnten bisher nicht in ein allgemeines Modell über die Entstehung von Musikpräferenz integriert werden. Die bereits existierenden Vorschläge für solch ein Modell beschränken sich auf konkrete Gefallensurteile für ein gegebenes Musikstück. Sie erklären jedoch nicht, warum sich Menschen überhaupt entschließen Musik zu hören und nach welchen Kriterien sie diese Musik aussuchen. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist die Untersuchung derjenigen Faktoren, welche die Motivation Musik zu hören und den Auswahlprozess von Musik aus verschiedenen musikalischen Stilen (Genres, Musikrichtungen) erklären können. Als entscheidend werden dabei die Funktionen von Musik erachtet, die in den bisherigen Modellen fast vollständig vernachlässigt wurden. Die Funktionalität – also der Nutzen – von Musik kann darüber Auskunft geben, welche (evolutionären) Vorteile sie für den Menschen hatte und wie sich diese Vorteile bis heute nutzen lassen um bestimmte Bedürfnisse zu befriedigen. Damit kann nicht nur die Frage beantwortet werden, warum jemand Musik hören möchte, sondern auch die Frage, warum jemand einen bestimmten Musikstil bevorzugt – denn Musik verschiedener Stilrichtungen kann für eine Person mit ganz unterschiedlichen Funktionen assoziiert sein. Wie die einzelnen Funktionen von Musik mit Musikpräferenz in Zusammenhang stehen und welche Funktionen eine entscheidende Rolle für die Entwicklung von Musikpräferenz spielen, ist das zentrale Thema dieser. In einem ersten Schritt wurde versucht die Liste der Faktoren, welche Musikpräferenz kausal beeinflussen, zu vervollständigen: Bisher ist bekannt, dass Musikpräferenz mit kognitiven, emotionalen, physiologischen, sozialen, entwicklungsbezogenen und persönlichkeitsbezogenen Variablen zusammenhängt. Von den physiologischen Variablen weiß man jedoch noch nicht, ob sie stets nur ein Effekt des Musikhörens sind oder ob sie auch ursächlich auf Musikpräferenz wirken können. In zwei Studien wurde gezeigt, dass das Hören von Lieblingsmusik mit erhöhter Erregung einhergeht und dass erhöhte Erregung umgekehrt Musikpräferenz verstärken kann. In zwei weiteren Studien über die Funktionen von Lieblingsmusik zeigte sich, dass Musik vor allem zur Stimmungs‐ und Erregungsmodulation eingesetzt werden kann. Es zeigte sich aber auch, dass diese am höchsten bewerteten Funktionen nicht gleichzeitig diejenigen sind, die für eine starke Präferenz für die eigene Lieblingsmusik verantwortlich sind. Stattdessen spielen für eine starke Präferenz eher soziale und kommunikative Funktionen eine große Rolle (z.B. die Möglichkeit mit Musik die eigene Identität auszudrücken). Die beiden abschließenden Studien zeigten, dass für Musikpräferenz generell – also über verschiedene Musikstile hinweg – kognitive Funktionen (wie Kommunikation oder Selbstreflexion) sowie physiologische Erregung die größte Rolle spielen, während emotionale Faktoren und die Bekanntheit der Musik keinen besonders großen Einfluss haben. Am Ende der Arbeit wird für eine Integration der gefundenen Ergebnisse in die bereits bestehenden Modelle über die Entwicklung von Musikpräferenz argumentiert, mit dem Ziel dieses Phänomen umfassend zu verstehen und die Befunde für eine erfolgreiche Anwendung in Bildung oder Therapie nutzen zu können. / More than 2500 years ago, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras explored the sound of swinging chords and made an intriguing discovery: the simultaneous tones of chords that are divided in their length in integer ratios produced a sound which people perceive as harmonic. Pythagoras was able to describe a subjective phenomenon of the human mind by means of simple mathematical ratios. With this principle he formulated the program of natural science, and it is still the way how scientists try to explain the human mind in terms of mathematical principles and laws. In fact, one of the youngest disciplines in modern sciences – the psychology of music – is tied to the ancient findings of Pythagoras and investigates human perception, cognition, emotion, and behavior related to music. There are three ways how people relate to music. They can create music as a composer, they can perform music by means of their voice or an instrument, and they can listen to music. Although all three aspects are interesting, the work in hand will concentrate on music listening because it is the most ubiquitous activity which concerns every single individual. Music psychology is related to music listening in several respects which will accompany the whole work: Why do we listen to music at all? What kind of music do we listen to and why? How strong is our relation to specific music and why? These fundamental questions guided the present research and root in evolutionary considerations about music listening and end up at the concrete use of music in people’s everyday life. The central issue which is surrounded by these questions is referred to as music preference. ‘Which music do you like?’ has become one of the most often used questions in psychological research, for two reasons: First, since every person (at least in the western world) is in contact with music everyday and most people see music as one of the most important things in their daily life, the study of music listening provides an authentic and fruitful avenue to their experiences and behavior in a variety of situations and contexts. Second, because music has been recognized as a tool for expressing and inducing moods and emotions and also as a means to convey information in social environments, music is by now often used as an essential implement in personality, emotion, and social psychology research. Thus, research on music preference is going on to provide us with deep insights into many psychological questions. The dissertation addresses the investigation of music preference in a series of experimental studies. Chapter 1 provides an introduction in theory and research about music preference and points at open questions which appear in both content and methodology of the current research. Chapters 2 to 4 present three empirical papers which addressed these open questions in a total of six studies. Chapter 5 summarizes the findings of these studies and provides some preliminary suggestions about a comprehensive model of music preference.