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It is unclear whether there are universal patterns to music across cultures. Mehr et al. examined ethnographic data and observed music in every society sampled (see the Perspective by Fitch and Popescu). For songs specifically, three dimensions characterize more than 25% of the performances studied: formality of the performance, arousal level, and religiosity. There is more variation in musical behavior within societies than between societies, and societies show similar levels of within-society variation in musical behavior. At the same time, one-third of societies significantly differ from average for any given dimension, and half of all societies differ from average on at least one dimension, indicating variability across cultures. Science , this issue p. eaax0868 ; see also p. 944 Songs exhibit universal patterns across cultures. What is universal about music, and what varies? We built a corpus of ethnographic text on musical behavior from a representative sample of the world’s societies, as well as a discography of audio recordings. The ethnographic corpus reveals that music (including songs with words) appears in every society observed; that music varies along three dimensions (formality, arousal, religiosity), more within societies than across them; and that music is associated with certain behavioral contexts such as infant care, healing, dance, and love. The discography—analyzed through machine summaries, amateur and expert listener ratings, and manual transcriptions—reveals that acoustic features of songs predict their primary behavioral context; that tonality is widespread, perhaps universal; that music varies in rhythmic and melodic complexity; and that elements of melodies and rhythms found worldwide follow power laws.

The arousal state of the brain covaries with the motor state of the animal. How these state changes are coordinated remains unclear. We discovered that sleep–wake brain states and motor behaviors are coregulated by shared neurons in the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr). Analysis of mouse home-cage behavior identified four states with different levels of brain arousal and motor activity: locomotion, nonlocomotor movement, quiet wakefulness, and sleep; transitions occurred not randomly but primarily between neighboring states. The glutamic acid decarboxylase 2 but not the parvalbumin subset of SNr γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)–releasing (GABAergic) neurons was preferentially active in states of low motor activity and arousal. Their activation or inactivation biased the direction of natural behavioral transitions and promoted or suppressed sleep, respectively. These GABAergic neurons integrate wide-ranging inputs and innervate multiple arousal-promoting and motor-control circuits through extensive collateral projections.

Test anxiety is a widespread and mostly detrimental emotion in learning and achievement settings. Thus, it is a construct of high interest for researchers and its measurement is an important issue. So far, test anxiety has typically been assessed using self-report measures. However, physiological measures (e.g., heart rate or skin conductance level) have gained increasing attention in educational research, as they allow for an objective and often continuous assessment of students’ physiological arousal (i.e., the physiological component of test anxiety) in real-life situations, such as a test. Although theoretically one would assume self-report measures of test anxiety and objective physiological measures would converge, empirical evidence is scarce and findings have been mixed. To achieve a more coherent picture of the relationship between these measures, this systematic review and meta-analysis investigated whether higher self-reported test anxiety is associated with expected increases in objectively measured physiological arousal. A systematic literature search yielded an initial 231 articles, and a structured selection process identified 29 eligible articles, comprising 31 studies, which met the specified inclusion criteria and provided sufficient information about the relationship under investigation. In line with theoretical models, in 21 out of the 31 included studies, there was a significant positive relationship between self-reported test anxiety and physiological arousal. The strengths of these correlations were of medium size. Moderators influencing the relation between these two measures are discussed, along with implications for the assessment of physiological data in future classroom-based research on test anxiety.

Children's instrumental helping has sometimes been interpreted as a desire to complete action sequences or to restore the physical order of things. Two-year-old children (n = 51) selectively retrieved for an adult the object he needed rather than one he did not (but which equally served to restore the previous order of things), and those with greater internal arousal (i.e., pupil dilation) were faster to help. In a second experiment (n = 64), children's arousal increased when they witnessed an adult respond inappropriately to another adult's need. This was not the case in a nonsocial control condition. These findings suggest that children's helping is not aimed at restoring the order of things but rather at seeing another person's need fulfilled.

Despite the importance of emotion regulation in education there is a paucity of research examining it in authentic educational contexts. Moreover, emotion measurement continues to be dominated by self-report measures. We address these gaps in the literature by measuring emotion regulation and activation in 37 medical students’ who were solving medical cases using BioWorld, a computer based learning environment. Specifically, we examined students’ habitual use of emotion regulation strategies as well as electrodermal activation (emotional arousal) from skin conductance level (SCL) or skin conductance response (SCR), as well as appraisals of control and value and self-reported emotional responses during a diagnostic reasoning task in Bioworld. Our results revealed that medical students reported significantly higher habitual levels of reappraisal than suppression ER strategies. Higher habitual levels of reappraisal significantly and positively predicted learners’ self-reported pride. On the other hand, higher habitual levels of suppression significantly and positively predicted learners’ self-reported anxiety, shame, and hopelessness. Results also revealed that medical students experienced relatively low SCLs and few SCRs while interacting with Bioworld. Habitual suppression strategies significantly and positively predicted medical students’ SCLs, while SCRs significantly and positively predicted their diagnostic efficiency. Findings also revealed a significant, positive predictive relationship between SCL and shame and anxiety and the inverse relationship between SCL and task value. Implications and future directions are discussed.

In order to better understand which factors play a role in non-adaptive social behavior in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) we looked into physiological arousal and awareness of one’s own emotions. Heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) were measured during a public speaking task in 51 young adults with ASD and 28 typically developing (TD) controls. The results showed no significant group differences in baseline HR/HRV, HR reactivity (change from baseline to the speaking task) or self-reported emotional awareness. However, adults with ASD showed significantly lower HRV reactivity ( p  = .023, d  = 0.6) compared to TD adults. These results suggest a mismatch between arousal regulation and emotional awareness, which may be related to problems in social adaptation in ASD.

This study aimed to assess physiological arousal and behavioral regulation of emotion in the context of frustration in 29 children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and 45 typically developing children (41–81 months). Heart rate was continuously measured and emotion strategies were coded, during a locked-box task. Results revealed increases in arousal followed by a decline during recovery, significant for both groups indicating that heart rate patterns between groups were identical. The ASD group deployed less constructive and more venting and avoidance strategies, which was related to language impairments. We conclude that rather than abnormal levels of emotional arousal, a key impairment in young children with ASD may be difficulties in behaviorally regulating and expressing experienced emotions to others.

Measures of well-being were created to assess psychological flourishing and feelings—positive feelings, negative feelings, and the difference between the two. The scales were evaluated in a sample of 689 college students from six locations. The Flourishing Scale is a brief 8-item summary measure of the respondent's self-perceived success in important areas such as relationships, self-esteem, purpose, and optimism. The scale provides a single psychological well-being score. The measure has good psychometric properties, and is strongly associated with other psychological well-being scales. The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience produces a score for positive feelings (6 items), a score for negative feelings (6 items), and the two can be combined to create a balance score. This 12-item brief scale has a number of desirable features compared to earlier measures of positive and negative emotions. In particular, the scale assesses with a few items a broad range of negative and positive experiences and feelings, not just those of a certain type, and is based on the amount of time the feelings were experienced during the past 4 weeks. The scale converges well with measures of emotions and affective well-being.

It has been debated that arousal rather than valence modulates the response-inhibition process. The processing of irrelevant information of happy and angry faces interacts with attention differently. In the present study, arousal-matched irrelevant happy and angry faces were used as stop-signals in the stop-signal paradigm. Participants were required to respond to go-signals (discriminate between X or O). Occasionally, a stop-signal was presented where participants were required to withhold their motor response. Results indicate a significant effect of emotion on response inhibition, which suggests that valence of a stop-signal modulates inhibitory control. More specifically, we found that only irrelevant angry, but not happy, expressions facilitate the response inhibition process. These results have theoretical implications for understanding the nature of emotions and its interaction with cognitive control functions.

This study examined the impact of noise on cognitive performance in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), while concurrently measuring sympathetic responses. Adolescents with and without ASD completed visually presented span tasks in a 2 × 2 experimental manipulation of noise (quiet vs. 75 dB gated broadband noise) and task difficulty (easier vs. harder). Analyses revealed a significant noise × difficulty interaction on performance, and a significant group × noise × difficulty interaction on sympathetic arousal. Correlational analyses indicated an adaptive effect of noise and increased arousal on performance in the easier condition for the control group and a detrimental effect of noise and increased arousal in the harder condition for the ASD group. Implications for sensory processing research and intervention development are discussed.