Emotions // Current

You Know You’re Rich When You Can Afford A Louis Vuitton Electric Chair (Such Sleek Shackles!)

jrn
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New Study Finds Men Able to Control Sexual Arousal Can Also Control Their Emotions

Is sex a state of mind? A recent study from the University of British Columbia finds that while most men can regulate their physical and mental sexual arousal to some degree, the men most able to do so are able to control their other emotions as well.

“We suspect that if an individual is good at regulating one type of emotional response, he/she is probably good at regulating other emotional responses,” says Jason Winters, the study’s research head. “This has never been shown before.”

The study employed 16 randomly ordered video clips. Eight were erotic, and eight were funny (specifically, the funny video clips featured the least sexy comedian the researchers could find: Mitch Hedberg). Participants were instructed to control their response to certain videos, and simply to watch the others. They then rated their arousal following each clip, and were hooked up to machines that measured their erections.

Researchers wanted to know: Could men control sexual arousal, fooling both themselves and others?

“I’m trained in forensic psychology, and the original plan was to do this study with sexual offenders,” Winters tells LiveScience. “However, I needed to first establish that there is range of sexual arousal regulation abilities in the general male population.”

Indeed, participants were, on average, able to regulate their physiological sexual arousal when told to do so; in fact, they showed a 25 percent reduction in erectile response. “This is consistent with success rates from previous, well-controlled [measuring-device] faking studies in which success rates range from 26 to 38 percent,” Winters writes in his study.

The range of regulation abilities had nothing to do with age, sexual experience, or sexual compulsivity. However, sexual excitation, inhibition, and desire were related to regulation success: Men who were more easily excited were, unsurprisingly, less able to regulate; guys who tended to be sexually inhibited because of performance issues were better able to stave off an erection.

Furthermore, the study found that the men who were best able to control their response to the pornographic videos were also able to control their response to Mitch Hedberg. But for those who had difficulty regulating, reverse psychology could be to blame.

“The finding that was most surprising was that some men became more sexually aroused when they tried to regulate their sexual arousal,” Winters says. “In other words, they responded more strongly (both physiologically and self-reported) during trials in which they attempted to regulate their arousal than trials during which they merely watched the stimuli. We attributed this increased response to anxiety — in this case, demand anxiety. It’s sort of like when you tell someone not to think of a white elephant; those [who] are most anxious during the task have the most trouble not thinking about the white elephant.”

The study’s findings could have significant implications.

“The next step is to do a similar study with sexual offenders,” Winters says. “I suspect that sexual offenders will generally be very poor regulators, and that poor regulation is one of the factors that contributes to their offending.”Is sex a state of mind? A recent study from the University of British Columbia finds... more

EmperorThan
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23 days ago
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4 comments

Facebook application calculates users' "Gross National Happiness"

Facebook has developed a new application, designed for calculating "Gross National... more

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1 month ago
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8 ways to spot Manipulation

There is no use in trying to be honest with an emotional manipulator. You make a... more

franksalot
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1 month ago
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You Know What? Celebs Have To Wait In Line For The Toilets Just Like We Do!

Celebrity culture can be such a hazy thing. They are human beings, but they are also... more

jrn
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3 months ago
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2 comments

The Power of Love

No words will ever be adequate, nor thoughts complete enough, to express what love is.

CHANLEEPENG
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3 months ago
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JCS Paranoia - what extreme solitude and separation do to the mind of a man in love with his family.

Anxiety, Fear, and Panic give way to the serenity of Peace when Lou is left alone for... more

julianscomedystop
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3 months ago
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Human Facial Expressions Aren't Universal

"Facial expressions, Charles Darwin argued in "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals," are a universal window into emotion. But new research challenges that notion, showing that east Asian people struggle to recognise facial expressions that western Caucasians attribute to fear and disgust. By focusing on eyes and brows, Asians miss subtle cues conveyed via the mouth.

"We question the universality of these specific signals," says Rachael Jack, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Glasgow, UK, whose team analysed how 13 Caucasian and 13 east Asian men and women interpret a standardised set of facial expressions, thought to be racially neutral, which is used widely in research.

Caucasian volunteers had no problem distinguishing between expressions of surprise, fear, disgust and anger. Asians, however, frequently confused fear for surprise and disgust for anger, Jack's team found.

An eye-tracking tool and software indicated that while Caucasians tended to look at all parts of a face equally, Asians alternated their gaze between the left and right eyes.

Meanwhile, computer modelling of different facial expressions found that the mouth is a much better telltale of a particular emotion than eyes and brows. Relying solely on the eyes, the model found, creates ambiguity between fear and surprise, and also anger and disgust – reflecting the mistakes the east Asian volunteers made in the experiment.

Jack's results don't mean that people from east Asian countries are blind to facial expressions of fear and disgust, but that there may be a different way for these signals to be conveyed. "We need to find out what these signals look like in eastern cultures," she says.

East Asian cultures tend to frown on the display of negative emotions in public, Jack says. It's possible that east Asians have learned that by paying close attention to another person's eyes, they can spot facial giveaways of muzzled feelings of disgust or fear, she says.

Differences in the interpretation of facial expressions between Asians and Caucasians are almost certainly cultural, not genetic, Jack says. To see if people can switch strategies to suit different cultures, her team is studying children born in the UK to Chinese parents.""Facial expressions, Charles Darwin argued in "The Expression of the Emotions in Man... more

St_Alia_10191
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3 months ago
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Women cry for about 16 months of their lives

Researchers have found that from birth til about the age of 78, women will cry for... more

emmaboswood
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3 months ago
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3 comments

MIGHTY MOVIE PODCAST on HuffPost: Lynn Shelton on HUMPDAY

I do so love the comedy of discomfort — you know, the kind of thing that pokes us... more

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JCS The TALKING SCALE

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5 months ago
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Happiness provides better vision

Research at the University of Toronto has provided the very first solid evidence of... more

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Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Story Time

Inside every woman is a little girl. And inside that little girl is a littler girl.... more

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5 months ago
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32 comments

Real Soldiers Love Their Robot Brethren

"Human warriors have long spoken of the bonds forged in combat and of becoming a "band... more

DeliaTheArtist
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6 months ago
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26 comments

HAPPY happy JOY joy

Now here's a frightening thought! Brain chemicals such as endorphins, and drugs, such... more

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6 months ago
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10 comments

U.S. Mood Map: Kentucky Saddest, Hawaii Gladdest?

Never mind depressed real estate values—the old mantra "location, location,... more

Anyother
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7 months ago
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Compassion: Easier For A Broken Leg Than Heart

"When we see someone with a broken leg, we feel his pain instantly. But it takes a bit... more

St_Alia_10191
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7 months ago
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DO YOU FRIGGIN TWITTER???

i have been pressured by so many people i know to twitter like when i found myspace... more

estee_arie
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8 months ago
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CAPS LOCK BOTHER YOU...

i was fascinated by how much just TEXT size really bothers people- partially like a... more

estee_arie
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8 months ago
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Musicians' Brains 'Fine-Tuned' to Identify Emotion

"In a study in the latest issue of European Journal of Neuroscience, an interdisciplinary Northwestern research team for the first time provides biological evidence that musical training enhances an individual's ability to recognize emotion in sound.

"Quickly and accurately identifying emotion in sound is a skill that translates across all arenas, whether in the predator-infested jungle or in the classroom, boardroom or bedroom," says Dana Strait, primary author of the study.

A doctoral student in the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music, Strait does research in the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory directed by neuroscientist Nina Kraus. The laboratory has done pioneering work on the neurobiology underlying speech and music perception and learning-associated brain plasticity.

Study participants were asked to watch a subtitled nature film to keep them entertained while they were hearing, through earphones, a 250-millisecond fragment of a distressed baby's cry. Sensitivity to the sound, and in particular to the more complicated part of the sound that contributes most to its emotional content, was measured through scalp electrodes.

The results were not exactly what the researchers expected. They found that musicians' brainstems lock onto the complex part of the sound known to carry more emotional elements but de-emphasize the simpler (less emotion conveying) part of the sound. This was not the case in non-musicians.

In essence, musicians more economically and more quickly focus their neural resources on the important -- in this case emotional -- aspect of sound. "That their brains respond more quickly and accurately than the brains of non-musicians is something we'd expect to translate into the perception of emotion in other settings," Strait says.

The authors of the study also note that the acoustic elements that musicians process more efficiently are the very same ones that children with language disorders, such as dyslexia and autism, have problems encoding. "It would not be a leap to suggest that children with language processing disorders may benefit from musical experience," says Kraus.""In a study in the latest issue of European Journal of Neuroscience, an... more

St_Alia_10191
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8 months ago
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3 comments

tagged w/ Emotions

You Know You’re Rich When You Can Afford A Louis Vuitton Electric Chair (Such Sleek Shackles!)

New Study Finds Men Able to Control Sexual Arousal Can Also Control Their Emotions

Facebook application calculates users' "Gross National Happiness"

8 ways to spot Manipulation

You Know What? Celebs Have To Wait In Line For The Toilets Just Like We Do!

The Power of Love

JCS Paranoia - what extreme solitude and separation do to the mind of a man in love with his family.

Human Facial Expressions Aren't Universal

Women cry for about 16 months of their lives

MIGHTY MOVIE PODCAST on HuffPost: Lynn Shelton on HUMPDAY

JCS The TALKING SCALE

Happiness provides better vision

Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Story Time

Real Soldiers Love Their Robot Brethren

HAPPY happy JOY joy

U.S. Mood Map: Kentucky Saddest, Hawaii Gladdest?

Compassion: Easier For A Broken Leg Than Heart

DO YOU FRIGGIN TWITTER???

CAPS LOCK BOTHER YOU...

Musicians' Brains 'Fine-Tuned' to Identify Emotion

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