Nostalgic memories serve to increase human resilience. Here, we hypothesized that emotional impressions on a narrator's nostalgic memory change depending on the level of empathy in the listener's response. This independent-measures study was conducted in 120 healthy Japanese undergraduates (66 women, 54 men, M age 20.3 ± 1.9 years). Nostalgia was induced using a medley of Japanese pop songs from the years 2006–2010. Thirty minutes later each participant was randomly allocated to be interviewed by an experimenter who applied one of three listening conditions: empathy, non-empathy, or non-response. Output measures were participant's talking time, nostalgia ratings, and positive and negative emotion ratings. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance followed by a multiple comparisons test. Empathy group participants had a significantly longer talking time than non-empathy or non-response participants, higher nostalgia scores than non-response participants, and higher positive emotion scores than non-empathy and non-response participants, but lower negative emotion scores than non-reponse participants. Participants were then divided into a less nostalgia-prone and a more nostalgia-prone group using the Southampton Nostalgia Rating Scale and the data were reanalyzed for each experimental condition. The results showed that a person more prone to nostalgia felt more nostalgic and more positive toward their autobiographical memory than those who are less nostalgia-prone. The present findings have implications for human interaction in everyday life and in therapeutic settings.
Human density in different locations influences time estimation. In this article, we report three experiments investigating whether research in virtual reality (VR) environments would replicate this earlier finding. In our first experiment, 35 participants wore head-mounted VR displays and watched two videos showing a cityscape and a countryside. While watching each video, participants were asked to provide their perceptions of 30 seconds of time passage. Perceived time in the cityscape condition was longer than in the countryside condition. In our second experiment, 43 participants wore head-mounted VR displays and watched two videos showing a crowded and uncrowded Ikebukuro station. While watching these videos, participants were asked to provide their perceptions of 60 seconds of time passage. Perceived time in the crowded condition was longer relative to the uncrowded condition. In our third experiment, 21 participants wore head-mounted displays and watched two videos showing a crowded and uncrowded nature park. While watching the videos, participants were asked to provide their perceptions of 60 seconds of time passage. These repeated findings in VR environments of longer time perception in crowded versus uncrowded conditions were similar to data reported by who examined how location and human density affected subjective time in the real world. We discussed the implications of the VR tool in subjective time research and how people perceive and use VR environments in daily life.
Facial expressions influence our experience and perception of emotions-they not only tell other people what we are feeling but also might tell us what to feel via sensory feedback. We conducted three experiments to investigate the interaction between facial feedback phenomena and different environmental stimuli, by asking participants to remember emotional autobiographical memories. Moreover, we examined how people with schizotypal traits would be affected by their experience of emotional facial simulations. We found that using a directed approach (gripping a pencil with teeth/lips) while remembering a specific autobiographical memory could successfully evoke participants' positive (e.g., happy and excited)/negative (e.g., angry and sad) emotions (i.e., Experiment 1). When using indirective environmental stimuli (e.g., teardrop glasses), the results of our experiments (i.e., Experiments 2 and 3) investigating facial feedback and the effect of teardrop glasses showed that participants who scored low in schizotypy reported little effect from wearing teardrop glasses, while those with high schizotypy reported a much greater effect in both between-and within-subject conditions. The results are discussed from the perspective of sense of ownership, which people with schizophrenia are believed to have deficits in.
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