There is a standard skeptical concern within philosophy of art that causal explanations in psychology and neuroscience apply equally to our engagement with art that is done well and art that is done poorly and so do not contribute to our understanding of the normative dimension of artistic appreciation. This skeptical concern is often used to challenge the relevance of psychology and neuroscien...

Affective computing holds significant promise for fostering engaging educational interactions that produce significant learning gains. Serious games are particularly well suited to promoting engagement and creating authentic contexts for learning scenarios. This paper describes an ongoing collaborative project between the Army Research Lab (ARL), Teachers College Columbia University, and North ...

Robots have great potential to facilitate future therapies for children on the autism spectrum. However, existing robots lack the ability to automatically perceive and respond to human affect, which is necessary for establishing and maintaining engaging interactions. Moreover, their inference challenge is made harder by the fact that many individuals with autism have atypical and unusually dive...

Learning involves a rich array of cognitive and affective states. Recognizing and understanding these cognitive and affective dimensions of learning is key to designing informed interventions. Prior research has highlighted the importance of facial expressions in learning-centered affective states, but tracking facial expression poses significant challenges. This paper presents an automated ana...

This longitudinal study investigated the role of teacher-student closeness and conflict in adolescents' school engagement trajectories, how dimensions predict achievement trajectories. A sample 5,382 adolescents (Mage.wave1 = 13.06, SD 0.51; 49.6% boys) were followed from Grade 7 to 9. Yearly measures included student reports on dimensions, teacher conflict, standardized tests for math achievem...

Although the preferential activation of the prefrontal cortical (PFC) dopaminergic system is generally observed in stress, limited exceptions to this have been observed. Certain non-escape behaviors have been demonstrated to attenuate physiological indices of stress (e.g., coping or displacement responses). One well-characterized non-escape behavior observed in stress is chewing, or gnawing, of...

Perceiving others in action elicits affective and aesthetic responses in observers. The present study investigates the extent to which these responses relate to an observer's general experience with observed movements. Facial electromyographic (EMG) responses were recorded in experienced dancers and non-dancers as they watched short videos of movements performed by professional ballet dancers. ...

BACKGROUND Family functioning in Huntington's disease (HD) is known from previous studies to be adversely affected. However, which aspects of family functioning are disrupted is unknown, limiting the empirical basis around which to create supportive interventions. OBJECTIVE The aim of the current study was to assess family functioning in HD families. METHODS We assessed family functioning i...

This project examines how the expression granted by new musical interfaces can be harnessed to create positive changes in health and well-being. We are undergoing experiments to measure EEG dynamics and physical movements performed by participants who are using software designed to invite physical and musical expression of the basic emotions. The present demonstration of this system incorporate...

Playing computer games is a predominantly emotional than rational process. Video games with affect-based adaptation measure player’s behavior signals and recognize player’s emotional states in order to adapt specific game features in a dynamic manner and to improve player’s engagement, immersion, excitement, and challenge. The present review deals with models for the presentation of emotions, t...