Through space, relations, and thoughts

The name psych-verbs is commonly assigned to verbs denoting mental or emotional states, such as fear, worry, frighten, or surprise. Such verbs select a participant/an individual who experiences an emotional or mental state, usually referred to as an Experiencer, and a non-Experiencer argument, sometimes called stimulus, trigger of emotion, causer or target/subject matter, or subsumed under the label of ‘theme’ (Landau, 2010, p. 5). The special behaviour of Experiencers, related to the so-called ‘psych effects’, is the reason why psychological predicates have been a subject of debate in theoretical syntax for several decades. The aim of this study is to check whether English verbal phraseological units, which denote a psychological condition of an Experiencer and occur with locative Prepositional Phrases (PPs), may serve as evidence for Landau’s (2010, p. 6) hypothesis of ‘Experiencers as mental locations’. Landau’s theory has been chosen since it covers a much broader variety of data, in comparison with the previous approaches, offered by Belletti & Rizzi (1988), Grimshaw (1990), and Pesetsky (1995), among others. The data analysed in the paper have been extracted from English dictionaries of idiomatic expressions, supported with the COCA Corpus. The study focuses on Object Experiencer verbal phraseological units that display a structure V + PP. The results of the study reveal that, in total, out of 3,000 tokens, there are only 50 psychological verbal idiomatic expressions with an Object Experiencer. However, the data show that a lexical P with the Experiencer as an object appears only in 13 (26%) idiomatic expressions out of the 50, whereas 37 items (74%) include an Experiencer preceded with no P. The latter might be treated as exhibiting an oblique Experiencer with a null preposition. However, no relevant syntactic evidence can be found in support the claim that there is a covert P in this type of phrase. Therefore, the results do not provide enough evidence in favour of Landau’s (2010) theory of Experiencers as mental locations, placed either in a covert or overt PP.

Cognitive and emotional factors influence specific domains of postural control in individuals with moderate-to-severe Parkinson’s disease

BackgroundEvidence from quantitative studies suggest that Tai Chi produces a variety of health-related benefits, but few qualitative studies have investigated how older adults perceive the benefit of Tai Chi. The objective of the current study was to qualitatively evaluate the perceived benefits of Tai Chi practice among community older population.MethodsThis study was conducted with participants from a trial examining the effects of a 12-week Tai Chi training on ischemic stroke risk in community older adults (n = 170). A total of 20 participants were randomly selected from a convenience sample of participants who had completed 12-week Tai Chi training (n = 68) were interviewed regarding their perceived benefit on physical and mental health and whether Tai Chi exercise was suitable for the elderly.ResultsAll participants agreed that Tai Chi training could relax their body and make them comfortable. Most of them thought Tai Chi training could promote physical health, including relieving pain, enhancing digestion, strengthening immunity, enhancing energy and improving sleep quality, enhancing their mental and emotional state (e.g. improving mood and reducing anxiety, improving concentration and promoting interpersonal relationship). Most of participants also agreed that Tai Chi exercise was appropriate for community older people. Three primary themes emerged from content analysis: Improving physical health; Enhancing mental and emotional state; Conforming with the request of the elderly.ConclusionThe findings indicate that regular Tai Chi exercise may have positive benefits in terms of improved physical health and mental state among community elderly population, and may be useful and feasible body-mind exercise to community elderly population for its positive effects and advantages.Trial registrationChiCTR ChiCTR-TRC-13003601. Registered 23 July 2014.

Eeg-based mental states assessment of three-wheeler drivers in different environments and traffic conditions

Introduction. Disability to recognize emotional and mental states from other people’s facial expressions is acknowledged as one of the major developmental-behavioral problems in autistic children. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of traditional and computer emotional facial training on the recognition of facial emotional states in children with autism and mother-child relation and parental competence in mothers of autistic children. Material and Methods. The present was clinical trial study. The children in the both groups were trained during 10 sessions. In traditional group children training using 40 images related to four situations as happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. The children in the computer group trained with the Let’s Face It software. These questionnaires were completed one day before and one day and one week after performing the intervention. The data were analyzed using SPSS software. Results. Findings showed that emotional state training has improved the identification of emotional states (p = 0.01), mother-child relation (p = 0.001) and parental competence (p = 0.001) in the both groups. There was also a statistically significant difference between the scores of identifying face emotional states (p = 0.01), mother-child relation (p = 0.001) and parental competence (p = 0.001) in the both groups. But training in traditional group was effectiveness than computer grope. Conclusion. Teaching emotional face to children with autism improved the recognition of emotional states by these children, and subsequently improved the mother-child relationship and motherly sense of competence in the mothers of these children.

“Geteiltes Leid ist halbes Leid.” The old German proverb reflects the fact that sharing a bad emotion or feeling with someone else may lower the psychological strain of the person experiencing sorrow, mourning or anger. On the other hand the person showing empathy will take literally a load from its counterpart, up to physiological reaction of the peripheral and central nervous pain system. Though subjective, mental and physical states can be shared. Visual perception of suffering may be important but also narrative description plays a role, all our senses are mixing in. It is hypothetized that literature, art and humanities allow this overlap. A change of mental states can lead to empirically observable effects as it is the case for the effect of role identity or placebo on pain perception. Antidepressants and other therapeutics are another choice to change the mental and bodily states. Their development follows today's notion of “rationality” in the design of therapeutics and is characterized solely by an atomic resolution approach to understand drug activity. Since emotional states and physiological states are entangled, given the difficulty of a physical description of emotion, the future rational drug design should encompass mental states as well.

This study investigates the role of expressive syntactic constructions (ESCs) in conveying cognitive intentions (opinion, argument, supposition) in literary texts. Using Guzel Yakhina's novel «Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes» as primary material, the research analyzes the functional capabilities of specific syntactic devices including parcellation, repetition, rhetorical questions and exclamations, aposiopesis, ellipsis, inversion, and other constructions that shape the pragmatic dimension of character utterances. The analysis demonstrates that parcellation enhances emotional emphasis and renders character speech more dynamic and expressive; repetition underscores speaker persistence and conviction; while ellipsis creates effects of implication, uncertainty, or internal tension. Rhetorical questions and exclamations enable characters to express subjective attitudes toward events, whereas inversion structures utterances to foreground key informational elements. Collectively, these devices not only transmit characters' cognitive states but also model their interpersonal interactions, reveal social status and psychological traits, thereby constructing comprehensive representations of their inner worlds and emotional experiences. The methodological framework is grounded in a cognitive-pragmatic approach, which treats expressive syntactic constructions as means of expressing intentionality. The scientific novelty lies in systematically correlating syntactic tools with types of cognitive intentions, revealing consistent patterns between utterance structure and intentional content, while facilitating identification of distinctive character speech types. Findings indicate that expressive syntax serves to verbalize cognitive and emotional states, enhances textual expressiveness, models characters' inner worlds, and reveals their psychological portraits. The practical significance encompasses applications in literary analysis, psycholinguistic research, and teaching literary interpretation. Study limitations acknowledge the single-text basis of conclusions, which may reflect genre and stylistic specificities. Nevertheless, the proposed approach opens new perspectives for analyzing literary discourse through the dual lens of syntactic expressivity and cognitive intentions.

<p>The article is devoted to exploring the resource potential of values for coping with the fear of COVID-19 and negative psychological and emotional states in a cross-cultural context. The study involved 2,310 Russian and 500 Kazakhstan students (71.2% - girls, average age 19.7 years). It is found that with the moderate level of fear among the majority of students the proportion of Kazakhstan students experiencing depression, exhaustion and nervousness due to coronavirus over the past month is less than the proportion of Russian students, which is explained by the greater orientation of traditional Kazakhstan culture towards mutual dependence and support in difficult life situations. It is established that value orientation <em>Openness</em><em> to change</em>, regardless of the country of residence, is accompanied by lower fear scores before COVID-19 and the absence of negative psychological and emotional states, while the focus on<em> Conservation values </em>is accompanied by higher indicators of fear and the presence of these psychological and emotional states. It is shown that the fear of COVID-19 encourages both Russian and Kazakhstan students to take more responsible attitude towards their own health and the health of others, to suppress their socially destructive tendencies and limit actions that harm others. It is concluded that the actualization of conservative values and the suppression of self-oriented hedonistic goals can be a psychological resource of the individual, which contributes to coping with fear and negative psychological and emotional states caused by the stressful impact of COVID-19.</p>

In this study, we investigated the prosody of domestic cat meows produced in different contexts. Prosodic cues – i.e., variation in intonation, duration, voice quality and fundamental frequency – in humans as well as in nonhuman animals carry information about idiosyncratic traits of the signaller, including sex, age, and physical and mental state. The duration, fundamental frequency (F0) and intonation in a sample of 969 meows recorded in seven different contexts (i.e., cuddle, door, food, greeting, lifting, play, cat carrier) were analysed using linear mixed effects regression and generalized additive models. In this, we controlled for cat age and sex, as meows produced by old cats had lower mean F0 than those produced by young cats, and female cats produced meows with higher mean F0 than male cats. We found significant effects of context on duration and mean F0, but not on F0 range. Furthermore, the results showed that the intonation of meows produced by cats in a cat carrier displayed a falling pattern, while that of meows produced in cuddle and door contexts was relatively level, and that of meows produced in the other contexts consisted of combinations of rising and falling. The average slope of meows produced in cat carrier and play contexts was negative, while that of meows produced in the other contexts was positive. We argue that this prosodic variation reflects the cats’ mental or emotional state, because of valence and arousal differences associated with the various contexts that were included in the study. Further studies will need to confirm this. In addition, we also plan additional analyses of spectral and voice quality parameters in meows and other cat vocalisation types.

Simple SummaryIn recent years, animal welfare scientists have focused on developing novel approaches for improving the quality of life of chimpanzees living in zoos, sanctuaries, and laboratories. To evaluate the emotional, physical, and mental states of individual chimpanzees, welfare researchers are encouraged to integrate indicators that can be monitored non-invasively. In this study, we analyzed data from 40 adult chimpanzees from 16 zoological facilities to generate reference intervals (i.e., ranges of values) for behavioral and physiological measures of welfare. We also examined whether these measures varied by age or sex. While we discovered sex or age differences for a handful of behaviors, most behaviors and the physiological measures (fecal glucocorticoid metabolites, fecal immunoglobulin-A) did not vary by sex or age. Moving forward, animal care professionals can make informed decisions regarding management and husbandry practices by comparing an individual chimpanzee’s values to the reference intervals reported in this study.Animal welfare researchers are committed to developing novel approaches to enhance the quality of life of chimpanzees living in professional care. To systematically monitor physical, mental, and emotional states, welfare scientists highlight the importance of integrating non-invasive, animal-based welfare indicators. This study aimed to create species-specific reference intervals for behavioral measures and physiological biomarkers. Specifically, we analyzed data from 40 adult chimpanzees (22 females, 18 males) residing at 16 zoological facilities to generate reference intervals for behavioral states and events, behavioral diversity, fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (GCMs), and fecal immunoglobulin-A (IgA). Comparisons of sex and age using linear regression models revealed significant differences for several behaviors. The proportion of time spent engaged in mutual/multiple social grooming significantly decreased as individuals aged. Furthermore, males spent a higher proportion of time performing aggressive contact behaviors and displaying to other chimpanzees when compared to females. Males also performed sexual examination behaviors at a higher rate than females. Behavioral diversity, fecal GCM, and fecal IgA did not vary by sex or age. In the future, values for individual chimpanzees can be compared to the ranges reported here for particular age/sex classes. Ultimately, animal care professionals can utilize reference intervals to make evidence-based decisions regarding management practices and environmental conditions.

Emotion recognition is considered as one of the most vital and challenging studies in the domain of computer vision. Due to the ongoing pandemic the people’s emotional and mental state is getting affected due to less physical interaction and increased virtual interaction. The motivation of the work lies in the recognition and monitoring of the emotional state of the human beings in live environment with higher accuracy rate and fast recognition time so as to keep them aware about their emotional state in the pandemic situation. Emotion recognition is achieved using the proposed deep convolution neural network (DCNN) using custom Gabor filter with 85.8% accuracy. Emotion recognition is also being investigated and compared with other deep learning models such as AlexNet, VGG-Net for testing the efficacy. When the emotion of the person will be found sad or angry then an alert sound is played and an email alert is automatically sent.KeywordsEmotion recognitionDeep learningGabor filterPandemicReal-time alertDCNNPreprocessing

Early childhood experiences influence cognitive-emotional development, with insecure attachment predisposing to potential psychopathologies. We investigated whether narratives containing attachment-specific speech patterns shape listeners' emotional responses and social intentions. First, 149 healthy participants listened to three narratives characteristic for secure, insecure-preoccupied, and insecure-dismissing attachment. Following each narrative, the well-being and interpersonal reactivity as a particular aspect of emotional reactivity of the listener were assessed. Likewise, psychopathological aspects of personality were evaluated. A follow-up study compared 10 psychosomatic patients with a current depressive episode and/or personality disorder with distinct depressive symptoms and 10 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Effects of narratives on listeners' mental state were tested with repeated-measures AN(C)OVA. Mediating effects in the listener (attachment characteristics in the context of personality traits) were explored. Narrative effects were compared between patients and controls. Listening to insecure attachment narratives reduced well-being in controls. Nevertheless, tendency for social interaction was highest following the insecure-preoccupied narrative. Importantly, listeners' individual attachment characteristics mediated the relationship between well-being/interpersonal reactivity following the insecure-preoccupied narrative and levels of psychopathology.Furthermore, compared with healthy participants, patients showed higher emotional reactivity following exposure to the insecure-preoccupied narrative, represented by lower well-being and lower estimation of friendliness towards the narrator. Exposure to attachment-specific speech patterns can result in dysphoric mood changes. Specifically, the insecure-preoccupied narrative influenced the listeners' emotional state, which was further mediated by the individual attachment patterns and psychopathological personality characteristics. This deepens the understanding of interpersonal processes, especially in psychotherapeutic settings. In clinical populations, insecure-preoccupied attachment has a high prevalence. In this study, listening to a narrative characteristic of insecure-preoccupied speech patterns resulted in reduced well-being in healthy listeners. Patients with depressive symptoms showed a higher emotional reactivity towards the insecure-preoccupied narrative compared to healthy controls. While working on (childhood) traumata, for example, in group therapy or inpatient settings, therapists should raise awareness to possible mood changes through discourse-conveyed attachment characteristics in listeners as a 'side effect'.

The article examines the emotional sphere of primary school children. Emotions are considered as a factor forming a complex system of a child’s emotional perceptions of the world. The understanding of one’s emotions and feelings is an important part of a growing personality. The formed emotional sphere is one of the most important conditions for a formed personality, whose experience is constantly enriched. The development of the emotional sphere is supported and constantly influenced by the family, school, all entourage. If children have some emotional disorders, then such negative emotions as grief, fear, anger, shame, fear prevail. In this case, children have high anxiety, but their positive emotions are rare. The article compares the emotional states and aggression of primary school children studying in the correctional classes, in the class with the program of “Intellect of Ukraine” and in the inclusive class. Working with anxious children is associated with certain difficulties and usually need a long time. It is advisable to use games with body contacts at work with such children. Relaxation exercises or deep breathing techniques are very useful. As a result of the conducted psychological examinations, the recommendations for correction and prevention of primary school children’s negative emotional states and anxiety were developed. The prospect of further research is to develop a methodology for psychological and pedagogical support of families raising children with special educational needs. A psychologist should help parents, in a correct and tactful way, to get rid of illusions as for opportunities of their child’s development. At the same time, a psychologist should strengthen parents’ faith in possibilities and prospects of their child’s development, as properly organized corrective actions can optimize the further intellectual and personal development of the child. If it is necessary, a psychologist should correct parents’ mental states. For this, we organized “Experienced parents” training on the school basis. During this training, we talk how treat properly children with special needs, how to improve their cognitive abilities, emotional states, help them to be adapted to school.

Objective: To explore and analyze the clinical effect of comprehensive nursing intervention in patients with urinary incontinence after radical prostatectomy. Methods: 84 patients with urinary incontinence after radical prostatectomy admitted to the Urology Department between May 2021 and May 2023 were included in this study. The patients were divided into a comprehensive group and a control group, with 42 cases in each group through a double-blind mechanism. The comprehensive group received comprehensive nursing care, and the control group received primary nursing care. The duration of indwelling urinary catheters and urinary incontinence; psychological performance and living conditions were compared between the two groups. Results: The duration of the indwelling urinary catheter and urinary incontinence of the patients in the comprehensive group were significantly shorter than that in the control group (P < 0.05). Before nursing, there was no statistically significant difference in the anxiety, depression, and other psychological manifestations between the two groups (P > 0.05); after nursing, the comprehensive group’s anxiety, depression, and other psychological manifestations of the comprehensive group were significantly lower than those of the control group (P < 0.05). Before nursing, there was no statistically significant difference in the physical function, mental state, emotional state, and physical recovery of the patients between both groups (P > 0.05); after nursing, the physical function, mental state, emotional state, physical recovery of the patients in the comprehensive group were significantly better than those of the control group. Besides, the living conditions of the patients in the comprehensive group were also significantly better than the control group’s (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Comprehensive nursing intervention can effectively improve symptoms of urinary incontinence after radical prostatectomy, reduce inner pressure, and improve living standards.

Emotions play a fundamental role in shaping human cognition and behavior, profoundly affecting the way we perceive, evaluate, and respond to our environment. Although extensive research has examined how the brain processes visual emotional stimuli, less is known about neural mechanisms related to emotional imagination and the processing of varying emotional and cognitive states. This study aims to address this gap by looking into brain activity using Electroencephalography (EEG) in response to emotional auditory inputs. Thirty-one healthy participants listened to neutral, positive, negative, and abstract spoken words and were instructed to imagine or feel these conditions while their brain activity was recorded. Event-Related Potentials (ERP) and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analyses were used to examine immediate and frequency-based neural responses. Our findings show that instructions to feel negative emotional words caused increased mean amplitudes, particularly in fronto-central areas, during the 250-350 ms timeframe compared to neutral conditions. For the 450-700 ms timeframe, negative emotions elicited stronger mean amplitudes than abstract stimuli over parietal electrodes. The FFT analysis showed increased beta and alpha power during negative emotional processing, while gamma, theta, and delta waves were not significantly affected by task condition. Overall, the results indicate that emotional words engage distinct neural processes during imagination. Notably, negative stimuli elicited more pronounced activity, which could be interpreted as enhanced cognitive-affective elaboration associated with internally generated imagery. The study provides new insight into how emotional states influence brain function in the context of internally generated emotional imagery.