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Placebos have often been used to reduce emotional distress but rarely to increase positive feelings. The present study investigated whether a placebo can promote acts of kindness (AoKs) that are associated with emotional well-being. A total of 160 university students were asked to perform an AoK daily for one week. They evaluated their emotional state (feelings of pleasantness, arousal, satisfaction) directly before and after the AoKs. This was monitored via a smartphone app. One group performed each AoK after taking a non-deceptive placebo; the other group received no placebo. Before and after the one-week program, the participants completed three questionnaires that assessed satisfaction with life, positive/negative affect, and flourishing. The participants reported higher pleasantness directly after engaging in an AoK and more satisfaction with life after the program. The motivation to carry out AoKs decreased strongly over the week. However, placebo receivers completed more AoKs than the no-placebo group. The results indicate that placebo treatment can promote the performance of acts of kindness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is one of the therapies recommended by the World Health Organization (2013) to treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although efficient, repeated exposure to the traumatic memory may reduce its acceptability to patients. The therapy "eye movement and alternate stimulation for brain integration" (MOSAIC in French) was developed to improve acceptability and reduce pain by drawing on the patient's internal resources. MOSAIC therapy focuses on the body sensations that the patient wants to experience and avoids having to relive the traumatic memories. This observational study aimed to compare the clinical efficiency of EMDR and MOSAIC therapy for PTSD and to measure the well-being generated by both therapies. Twenty-six PTSD patients (17 females and 9 males, mean age 37.01 years, SD = 13.06) received treatment by psychiatrists and/or psychologists trained with EMDR or MOSAIC therapy. Both patient groups achieved a significant decrease in PTSD symptoms as measured with the PCL-5. However, fewer sessions were required with the MOSAIC therapy than with EMDR therapy. As expected, the level of well-being experienced by the patient during the therapy, assessed using the Lickert scale, was higher with MOSAIC than with EMDR therapy from the first session. These findings provide the first evidence of the efficacy of MOSAIC therapy treatment, which now needs to be corroborated in a larger randomized clinical trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In poetry declamation, the appropriate use of prosody to cause pleasure is essential. Among the prosodic parameters, pause is one of the most effective to engage the listeners and provide them with a pleasant experience. The declamation of three poems in two varieties of Portuguese by ten Brazilian Portuguese (BP) speakers and ten European Portuguese (EP) speakers, balanced for gender, was used as a corpus for evaluating the degree of pleasantness by listeners from the same language variety. The distributions of pause duration and inter-pause interval (IPI) both varied greatly across the subjects, being the main source of variability and strongly right-tailed. The evaluation of the degree of pleasantness revealed that pause duration predicts degree of pleasantness in EP, whereas IPI predicts degree of pleasantness in BP. Reciters perform a kind of complex "dance", where sonority between pauses is favored in BP and pause duration in EP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different psychophysical works have reported that, when a wide range of odors is assessed, the hedonic dimension is the most salient. Hence, pleasantness is the most basic attribute of odor perception. Recent studies suggest that the molecular size of a given odorant is positively correlated with its hedonic character. This correlation was confirmed in the present study, but further basic molecular features affecting pleasantness were identified by means of multiple linear regression for the compounds contained in five chemical sets. For three of them, hedonic judgments are available in the literature. For a further two chemical sets, hedonic scores were estimated from odor character descriptions based on numerical profiles. Generally speaking, fairly similar equations were obtained for the prediction of hedonic judgments in the five chemical sets, with R2 values ranging from 0.46 to 0.71. The results suggest that larger molecules containing oxygen are more likely to be perceived as pleasant, while the opposite applies to carboxylic acids and sulfur compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable strategies that enable development of alternative sustainable novel ingredients for food are needed to ensure adequate resources for food in the future. Determining consumer attitudes and acceptance of novel ingredients is essential for wider usage of products including these ingredients. The purpose of the study was to reveal consumers' perspectives on novel, and partly traditional but marginally utilized, ingredients to be used in regular cooking and their sensory characteristics and nutritional and environmental aspects. Consumer attitudes were obtained with two online consumer surveys. Consumer surveys revealed the most interesting ingredients. Plant-based ingredients are preferred over raw materials of animal or insect origin and these are also perceived as more pleasant. Plants were also regarded as credible, ecological, natural, healthy and nutrient-rich. Finnish consumers are not ready to adopt insects into their diet. Neither synthetic meat nor three-dimensional printed food have potential without further knowledge or experience of consumers. Findings of this research give baseline information on consumer attitudes towards novel ingredients. Further research is needed to investigate the perceived pleasantness when the potential ingredients are tasted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influencer marketing furthers the goals of relationship marketing. Companies use influencers to advertise their products through social networks such as Instagram. This digital advertising is aimed at shifting the company's goals from customer acquisition to retention and commitment. While several articles provide interesting advances analyzing social media and sustainability goals, research about influencer types and their impact on engagement preserving corporate sustainability is limited. Thus, the objectives of this study are: (1) Select general influencer traits as positive characteristics in promoting a product; (2) analyze them for micro and macro influencer scenarios; (3) explore potential differences in their adequacy determining customer engagement and preserving corporate sustainability. Credibility, pleasantness, and emotions are the criteria analyzed through multivariate analysis applied over two independent samples of followers. Pleasantness and appearance in the macro influencer scenario and perceived integrity in that of the micro influencer appear to conflict with the desired transparency of the message, while transmission of emotions plays an essential role in both scenarios. This is a very important finding. Companies should assess candidate influencers' emotional projection skills, in addition to evaluating the brand sponsorship costs and defining the target audience for the advertisement, always under the premise of preserving corporate sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Gymnemic acids, from the plant Gymnema sylvestre (GS), selectively suppress taste responses to sweet compounds without affecting the perception of other taste elements. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of consuming a GS-containing mint on the desire to consume high-sugar sweet foods directly thereafter. Methods. This study utilized a single-blind, crossover design comparing the consumption of a mint (dissolving tablet) containing 4 mg of gymnemic acids with an isocaloric placebo in 56 healthy young men and women. Participants were given samples of their favourite chocolate (varied between 14–18 g; energy varied between 292–370 kJ) and were directed to rate on their hunger on 100-mm visual analogue scales 30 s prior to consuming high-sugar sweet food (chocolate). They then consumed the GS mint or placebo mint and rated their perceived pleasantness and desire for more chocolate on separate visual analogue scales immediately following consumption of the high-sugar sweet food before being offered up to five additional servings (and asked to rate hunger, pleasantness and desire to eat more chocolate between each ingestion period). Results. The number of chocolate bars eaten decreased by 0.48 bars (21.3%) within a 15-min period of consumption of the GS mint (p = 0.006). Desire to eat more of the high-sugar sweet food (p = 0.011) and pleasantness of the high-sugar sweet food (p < 0.001) was reduced after GS mint intake. Those who reported having a 'sweet tooth' had a greater reduction in the pleasantness of chocolate (p = 0.037) and desire to eat more (p = 0.004) after consuming the GS mint for the first serving of a high-sugar sweet food following the mint. Conclusion. Consuming gymnema-containing mints compared to placebo significantly reduced the quantity of chocolate eaten mainly due to a decrease in the desire and pleasantness of consuming it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceived occurrences of soundscape reflect cognitive responses to perceived soundscapes. This research focuses on the relationship between perceived occurrences and pleasantness of soundscape in urban forests, and models these parameters. Soundscape information was gathered at 60 observation sites in urban forests, including perceived occurrences of soundscape (POS), pleasantness of perceived soundscape in urban forests (PSUF), and equivalent continuous A-weighted sound pressure level (LAeq). Twelve trained participants were exposed to the soundscape at each site for five minutes and filled out a questionnaire about POS and PSUF. The weight-ratio of perceived occurrences of soundscape (WPOS) was obtained from the POS. Pearson's correlation coefficients and Stevens' power law were conducted to test the applicability of the perceived occurrences of soundscape in psychophysical models. Results show that there is an interaction between the WPOS and PSUF in urban forests, and that psychophysical models are able to assess pleasantness of perceived soundscapes in urban forests. Findings show that pleasantness trends of geophony and biophony in broad-leaved forests and those in coniferous forests are opposite when the LAeq is increasing. Furthermore, by combining the WPOS, PSUF, and LAeq, the models were able to link the PSUF of geophony, biophony, anthrophony, and total soundscape in urban forests. Overall, results revealed that perceived occurrences of soundscape play a key role in linking the pleasantness of geophony, biophony, and anthrophony in urban forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]