🗣 Communication Paper Picnic 🧺: Psychology

I checked 15 psychology journals on Friday, October 30, 2026 using the Crossref API. For the period October 23 to October 29, I found 45 new paper(s) in 12 journal(s).

Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science

Registered Report: Replication and Extension of Nozaradan et al. (2011)

Karli M. Nave, Erin E. Hannon, Joel S. Snyder, Emma Alexandrov, Sarah C. Allen, Fernando Barbosa, Mara Breen, Alexandre Celma-Miralles, Thibault Chain, Joshua R. de Leeuw, Fernando Ferreira-Santos, Ahren B. Fitzroy, Ningyao Geng, Sean A. Gilmore, Reyna L. Gordon, Jessica A. Grahn, Paz Har-Shai Yahav, Kiara Holm, Falk Huettig, Anne Keitel, Christian Keitel, Eniko Ladanyi, Yiguang Liu, Psyche Loui, Grace A. Lourie, Inês Macedo, Cyrille L. Magne, Cecilie Møller, David Moreau, Srishti Nayak, Markus Ostarek, Dingyi Pan, Rita Pasion, Mariana R. Pereira, Danna S. Pinto, Eva D. Poort, Meg Renzelman, Frank A. Russo, Jan Stupacher, Parker Tichko, Lucy Wight, Chu Yi Yu, Elana M. Zion Golumbic

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Cognitive neuroscience has long sought to disentangle stimulus-driven processing from conscious perceptual processing. Some prior evidence for neural processing of perceived musical beat (periodic pulse) may be confounded by stimulus-driven activity. Nozaradan et al. controlled for stimulus factors and used frequency tagging to show increased brain activity at imagery-related frequencies when listeners imagined a beat pattern during an isochronous stimulus. However, it remains unclear whether this effect is replicable and whether it reliably reflects conscious beat perception. In this registered report, we present 13 independent replications using the same vetted protocol. Listeners performed the same experimental paradigm as in Nozaradan et al. with an added behavioral task on each trial to assess conscious perception of the imagined beat. Preregistered meta-analyses revealed smaller raw effect sizes of imagery condition (binary = 0.03 µV, ternary = 0.03 µV) than the original study (binary = 0.12 µV, ternary = 0.20 µV) with confidence intervals all overlapping with zero. Differences in full-sample estimated effect sizes (this study: N = 152, η p 2 s = .03–.04; 2011 study: N = 8, η p 2 s = .62–.76) suggest larger sample sizes are necessary to detect these effects reliably if they exist. In addition, only neural activity at the stimulus frequency predicted imagery-task accuracy, contradicting our hypothesis that beat-related frequencies would predict performance. Our findings suggest an overall failure to replicate all main effects from the original study. We discuss potential reasons for discrepancies with the original study and implications for the utility of frequency tagging for studying beat perception.

On the Limits of Contextual Malleability in Cognitive Performance: Commentary on Stoevenbelt et al. (2026)

David Moreau

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Exploring the Impact of Nonlinearity on Effect Heterogeneity in Experimental Data

Jens H. Fünderich, Lukas J. Beinhauer, Frank Renkewitz

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Heterogeneity has been proposed as a framework to improve psychological and behavioral science by identifying mechanisms that explain the differences between replications of an effect. The modal response to such differences is to search for relevant moderators—typically with limited success. We argue that monotonic nonlinear relationships can generate heterogeneous effects across replications when baseline levels differ, even in the absence of moderators. To evaluate this possibility, we introduce four descriptors of heterogeneity: effect heterogeneity, control-group heterogeneity, the intercept-slope correlation, and the rank correlation between control and treatment means. These characterize patterns consistent with linear, concave, or convex functional relationships. We apply this analytical framework to an initial pool of 55 meta-analytic multilab data sets. All data sets with heterogeneous effects also demonstrated control-group heterogeneity, and several patterns were in line with a concave functional relationship. In some cases, the association between baselines and effects accounted for a substantial proportion of effect heterogeneity. In addition, only a small number of data sets were directly at odds with a monotonic nonlinear functional form. Moreover, our results suggest that effect heterogeneity in multilab research reflects diverse data patterns rather than providing support for treating moderators as the modal explanation for effect heterogeneity. We discuss implications for multilab and meta-analytic practice, study design, and interpretations of effect heterogeneity. We advocate for a shift from treating only the effect-size distribution as the explanandum of the heterogeneity framework to more elaborate descriptions of heterogeneity.

Multiple Methods for Visualizing Human Language: A Tutorial for Social and Behavioral Scientists

Veerle C. Eijsbroek, August H. Nilsson, Leon Ackermann, Zhuojun Gu, Clara Wiebel, Adithya V. Ganesan, Katarina Kjell, H. Andrew Schwartz, Oscar N. E. Kjell

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Humans use language to communicate psychological experiences. Advancements in natural language processing have enabled researchers to quantitatively study and assess psychological states and behaviors through language. Insights from these language analyses are often best conveyed through visualizations. Data-driven visualizations of how language statistically relates to psychological dimensions can help interpret assessment scores, uncover meaningful patterns, and understand the intricate relationships between language use and mental states. Visualizations can be used to differentiate between related constructs (e.g., How does language related to depression versus anxiety differ?), understand the validity of assessment tools (e.g., Does the language related to high depression severity match with depression theory?), and explain language-based assessments (e.g., Which language is indicative of higher depression severity in a language-based assessment?). In this tutorial, we demonstrate how to transform language data into visual insights using the text and topics packages in R. We provide practical guidance on creating four types of visualizations based on different language-analysis techniques, examining how language-use patterns are statistically associated with psychological constructs. We visualize (a) individual words and phrases (n-grams), (b) topics (word clusters), (c) words in the word-embedding space, and (d) relevant language examples. The different visualizations offer complementary perspectives, visualizing linguistic elements from individual words to overarching topics and text examples. The underlying methods range from correlations between individual words to more advanced techniques, including topic modeling and large language models. By making these methods accessible, we aim to empower researchers to use language visualizations for meaningful, data-driven insights.

Behavior Research Methods

Can large language models code meaning-making? A multi-model validation of automated autobiographical reasoning scoring in Chinese adolescent narratives

Bin Wang, Chengnuo Zhang, Yiwen Cai, Zhirui Li

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Enabling automatic transcription of child-centered audio recordings from real-world environments

Daniil Kocharov, Azarias Galama, Okko Räsänen

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Longform audio recordings obtained with microphones worn by children—also known as child-centered daylong recordings—have become a standard method for studying children’s language experiences and their impact on subsequent language development. Transcripts of longform speech audio would enable rich analyses at various linguistic levels, yet the massive scale of typical longform corpora prohibits comprehensive manual annotation. Meanwhile, automatic speech recognition (ASR)-based transcription faces significant challenges due to the noisy, unconstrained nature of real-world audio. Previous attempts have assumed that ASR must process each longform recording in its entirety. In this work, we present an approach for automatic detection of those utterances in longform audio that can be reliably transcribed with modern ASR systems, allowing automatic and relatively accurate transcription of a notable proportion of all speech in typical longform data. We validate the approach on four English longform corpora, showing that it achieves a median word error rate (WER) of 0% and a mean WER of 16% when transcribing 30% of the total speech in the dataset. In contrast, transcribing all speech without any filtering yields a median WER of 52% and a mean WER of 51%. We also compare word log-frequencies derived from the automatic transcripts with those from manual annotations and show that the frequencies correlate at r = 0.94 (Pearson) for all transcribed words and r = 0.99 for words that appear at least five times in the automatic transcripts. Overall, the work provides a concrete step toward increasingly detailed automated linguistic analyses of child-centered longform audio.

Dimensional and categorical emotional ratings of Russian nouns: The ENRuN-2 database

Dmitry Lyusin, Tatiana Sysoeva

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A web-based spot-the-difference paradigm for studying social information processing in naturalistic visual scenes

Yiping Ge, Qiyu Xia, Guoyu Li, Yi Jiang, Li Wang

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The SPOT Grid: Naturalistic images with predefined settings, patterns, objects, and textures

Zall Hirschstein, Mariam Aly, Chris Baldassano

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Computers in Human Behavior

Daily stressors, perceived offline social support, addictive social media use, loneliness and mental health: a comparison of student and non-student emerging adults

Julia Brailovskaia, Lena-Marie Precht, Michael Witthöft, Jürgen Margraf

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Effects of Multi-Attributional Diversity for Targets and Perceivers of Stereotypes in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning

Jennifer Hochstein, Laura Froehlich, Niels Seidel, Martin Schulze, Joerg M. Haake, Nathalie Bick, Jan-Bennet Voltmer, Sarah E. Martiny, Jana Nikitin, Verena Walpurger, Sören Michallek, Stefan Stürmer

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Gaining control at a cost? Customization, cognitive load, and perceived AI agency across task contexts

Qian Xu, Cheng Chen

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Beyond access: Engagement with conversational AI-assisted feedback shapes cognitive load in digital game-based learning

Anna Wenzel, Jan-Martin Geiger, Andreas Liening

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Exploring drivers of proactive intention in smart health app adoption: Extending the health belief model with social cognitive theory

Yi-Cheng Chen, Liang-Ying Yen, Yi-Hsuan Chen

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Tech Shame: Conceptualizing and Measuring a Novel Self-Conscious Emotion in Technology Contexts

Seth J. Kinnett, Manika Chaudhary

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Social Comparison and Risky Loot Box Use in Video Games: The Roles of Relative Deprivation, Perceived Superiority, and Perceived Luck

Siyuan Xu, Liu Yang, Qiuming Tang, Ming Ji

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Short-Form Video Use and Adolescent Well-Being: A Systematic Review

Elisa Saraceni, Emanuele Frontoni, Daria J. Kuss

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Parent Technoference and Child Mental Health Problems: A Meta-Analysis

Rachel Eirich, Abby Marsh, Sheri Madigan

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The Internet is just a tool: Neither transactive memory systems nor cognitive extension fully explain knowledge conflation

Jenna R. Donet, Philip H. Marshall, Michael J. Serra

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People Offload Empathy When They Think AI Can Give It Instead

Madhulika Shastry, Kurt Gray

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Childhood adversity and digital deviance: Adverse childhood experiences and offline and online offending among active hackers

Caitlyn N. Muniz, C. Jordan Howell, Katelyn Smith, Zacharias Pieri

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Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

Pronouns, Faces, and Voices: How Gender Identity Labels and Phenotypic Cues Influence Anticipated Anxiety and Avoidance

Brandon R. Cohen, Gina A. Paganini, Lindsay Goolsby, Camille K. Abelanet, E. Paige Lloyd

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When perceivers encounter novel others, perceptual cues to gender (vocal tones, facial structure) and gender labels (e.g., pronouns) can influence impression formation. However, most work examining gender cues and impression formation examines the effects of either a perceptual cue or a gender label on judgments of others. The current work aimed to understand how perceptual cues from others’ faces (Study 1) or voices (Study 2) combined with binary (e.g., she/her) and nonbinary (e.g., they/them) gender labels influence perceivers’ anticipated anxiety and avoidance. Both studies found that perceptual cues and gender labels interacted to inform anticipated anxiety and avoidance. For binary gender labels, cue-label pairings that diverged from societal expectations of gender (e.g., he/him paired with feminine faces or voices) led perceivers to report greater anticipated anxiety and avoidance than pairings consistent with societal expectations (e.g., he/him paired with masculine faces or voices). For nonbinary gender labels, findings were inconsistent across studies. Faces paired with nonbinary pronouns led to more anticipated anxiety and avoidance when the faces were masculine or androgynous vs. feminine. These findings did not extend to voices. This work provides initial evidence that gender labels and perceptual cues to gender may interact to influence perceivers’ anticipated anxiety and avoidance, thereby providing insights into gender-based impression formation that may be consequential for biases toward and discriminatory treatment of gender-diverse individuals.

Racial Bias Masquerading as Nostalgia: Nostalgic Longing and Opposition to Increased Racial Representation in the Media

Mason D. Burns, Bryor D. Brown, Teagan A. Robbins

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Racial/ethnic minority diversity in the mass media has increased in recent years, in part due to racebending—non-White performers portraying traditionally White characters. Racebending is, however, frequently met with backlash, with opponents expressing nostalgia for original representations and decrying racebending as deviating from traditional portrayals. Although expressing nostalgia is seemingly race-neutral, we reasoned that expressing nostalgia to decry racebending is, for some people, an indirect means of expressing biased attitudes that allows racially biased people to oppose racebending without having to appear biased. Three studies ( N = 694) found that White supremacist attitudes predicted self-reported media nostalgia, which in turn predicted racebending opposition. However, nostalgia was inconsistently predictive of opposition to media changes. Specifically, we found that people higher in nostalgia opposed racebending, but not other deviations from traditional presentations (i.e., Whitewashing). These results suggest that nostalgia is used by some to indirectly oppose racial diversity in the media.

Implications of Self-observation for Metaperceived Gender Salience During Mixed-Gender Online Negotiations

Jacquie D. Vorauer, Carly Bretecher, Carly Klassen, Michael Kowalchuk

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Gender salience is a core construct in theories of gender-related affect, cognition, and behavior. This research suggests a novel, subtle trigger of gender salience in mixed-gender negotiations: the self-observation typically involved in online interaction. This trigger maps onto everyday experience and is qualitatively different from other documented triggers. We reasoned that given individuals’ enduring alertness to the possibility of being viewed unfavorably by others, seeing their own image would lead them to imagine that their interaction partner was focused on their gender—a visible distinctive group membership in the interaction context. A mini meta-analysis across three studies in which mixed-gender dyads negotiated online with self-view on or off (total N = 366 dyads) indicated that overall self-observation increased women’s but not men’s metaperceived gender salience, although there was some inconsistency across the studies. Analyses of indirect effects suggested that higher gender salience was associated with greater female disadvantage in negotiation outcomes.

Beliefs about Structural Racism Shape Perceptions of Racial Economic Inequality

Julian M. Rucker, Sa-Kiera T. J. Hudson, Bennett T. Callaghan, Xin Yang, Michael W. Kraus, Jennifer A. Richeson

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Despite vast racial disparities in economic outcomes, White Americans tend to overestimate their economic parity with Black Americans. White Americans also tend to be less likely to hold an understanding of racism that is rooted in structural processes, relative to individual-level biases. Across three studies ( N = 2,124 participants), the present research explored whether White Americans’ misperceptions of racial economic inequality are explained, in part, by a general lack of exposure to information about structural racism. In Study 1, we measured the extent to which participants conceptualized racism in terms of structural factors. In Studies 2 and 3, we experimentally manipulated exposure to information about structural racism. Specifically, participants listened to an audio clip discussing structural roots of racial discrimination, a comparable audio clip on implicit racial bias, or no clip at all. In each study, participants estimated Black–White equality in income and wealth, then indicated their support for reparative public policies (e.g., affirmative action in hiring). Across Studies 1–3, holding a structural understanding of racism was correlated with perceiving lower levels of contemporary Black–White economic equality and greater support for racial equity-enhancing policies. Further, exposing participants to information about structural racism led them to perceive lower levels of racial economic equality (vs. interpersonal racism or control information in Study 2) and express more equity-enhancing policy support (vs. interpersonal racism information in Study 3).

How Feminine and Masculine Do Cisgender People in the U.S. Think the Average Gender Nonbinary Person Is?

Anna-Kaisa Reiman

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Perception of gender is ubiquitous and consequential in social life. People who are perceived as women are expected to enact femininity, whereas people who are perceived as men are expected to enact masculinity. How do gender nonbinary people fit into these binary assumptions? The present work examined the perceived femininity and masculinity of nonbinary people. In particular, cisgender, primarily straight/heterosexual, U.S.-based participants reported their assumptions about the assigned sex (Study 1; N = 315) or their perceptions of the femininity and masculinity (Studies 2–3; N s = 216 and 277) of the average nonbinary person. No apparent bias in terms of assumed sex or perceived femininity emerged, yet participants rated the average nonbinary person as reliably below the scale midpoint on masculinity. Accordingly, cisgender straight Americans’ perceptions of the average nonbinary person may in part reflect a tendency to safeguard masculinity.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Glass half empty: How pessimism is seen as a moral failing

Eda Erensoy, Deborah A. Small

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Priming relationship pedestal beliefs in single people

Brittany E. Dennett, Burdett H. Kwon, Yuthika U. Girme

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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

People underestimate how much dissimilar others want to connect.

Gus Cooney, Erica J. Boothby, Jacquie D. Vorauer, Maurice E. Schweitzer

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Anchored in truth but driven by grandiosity: A process account of narcissistic self-enhancement.

Christoph Heine, Constantine Sedikides, Michael Dufner

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Organizational Research Methods

Detecting Careless Responding: A Comparison of Norm Group-Based Mahalanobis Distance and Norm Group-Based Person-Total Correlation with Their Sample-Based Counterparts

Philippe Goldammer, Yannik A. Escher, Peter Lucas Stöckli, Hubert Annen, Anna Luca Heimann

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Detecting careless responding in self-report questionnaires has gained considerable attention. Different detection methods have been proposed, with implicit methods offering clear advantages over explicit ones. Mahalanobis distance (MD) and person-total correlation ( r pbis ) are among the most promising implicit detection methods. However, previous research has suggested that MD and r pbis are less accurate indicators of careless responding when the percentage of careless respondents in the sample is high and that norm group-based (NGB) MD and r pbis might be more accurate alternatives under that condition. In two simulation studies and a reanalysis of real data, we examined whether NGB MD and NGB r pbis indeed outperform their sample-based (SB) counterparts in a variety of careless responding patterns. The three main findings were as follows: (1) NGB MD outperformed SB MD in most conditions in three studies, (2) both MD indices (but not r pbis indices) were ineffective when simulated scale-midpoint invariant and full straightlining careless responding had to be detected, and (3) NGB r pbis almost never outperformed SB r pbis . We therefore recommend using NGB MD instead of SB MD, and using SB r pbis instead of NGB r pbis when screening data for careless responding.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Inferring Struggle, Judging Strength: How Inferred Adversity and Sympathy Shape Competence Evaluations of Black Frontline Employees

Shahin Sharifi

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How do racial inferences shape third-party evaluations of employee competence? Across four experiments, White U.S. observers judged Black frontline employees as more competent than otherwise comparable White employees in service-failure encounters involving a Black customer. This pattern was consistent with a serial process in which employee race cued greater inferred adversity, which elicited sympathy, thereby elevating competence judgments. Study 1 established the competence difference and its association with lower negative word of mouth. Study 2 showed that behavioral awkwardness attenuated the difference. Study 3 supported the serial indirect pathway, and the supplementary pilot reproduced it without a service failure. Study 4 showed that structural-opportunity information increased inferred adversity for both employees and especially increased sympathy and competence judgments for the White employee, narrowing Black–White differences. The findings identify a context-dependent, normatively complex route through which presumed adversity can produce comparatively favorable yet racialized competence judgments.

Helpful and in Danger: Attributes and Correlates of Perceived Occupational Heroism

Jean Monéger, Roger Giner-Sorolla

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Some occupations such as firefighters are described as heroic, while others, such as healthcare workers, are applauded as “heroes” in crises. In two preregistered correlational studies conducted on representative U.K. samples, we evaluated theory-based attributes of occupational heroism, and its relationship to specific policy-relevant attitudes toward occupations. In Study 1 ( N = 430), we confirmed that occupational heroism relates to the perceived helpfulness and risk exposure of workers. In Study 2 ( N = 840), we further showed that occupational heroism is associated with a moral shield: workers’ hero status correlates with decreased acceptability of criticism toward them, and increased support for deregulating them and protecting them from punishment for rule-breaking. Unlike previous findings suggesting a willingness to exploit heroized workers, heroism correlated with increased gratitude toward workers, support for their demands, and perception that they are vulnerable. Societal consequences and relevance for policy-making are discussed.

Psychological Methods

Evaluating statistical methods for single-case designs under serial dependence: Precision, validity, and sensitivity.

Hsiu-Ting Yu

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Psychological Science

Context Matters, Doesn’t It? The Role of Context in Everyday Emotion Regulation Strategy Use

Anh Tran, Rachel Freeman-Robinson, Peter Koval, Katharine H. Greenaway, Elise K. Kalokerinos

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A common maxim holds that “context is everything.” This perspective transformed the field of emotion regulation, which evolved from understanding which regulation strategies people use, to understanding how strategy use varies by context (i.e., strategy–situation fit). Theoretical accounts suggest contextual features are crucial in guiding strategy use. However, empirical evidence is isolated in piecemeal studies with inconclusive results. To comprehensively explore context-dependent emotion regulation, we need data on emotion regulation across many contexts, at scale. Combining up to 11 experience-sampling data sets collected from Belgian and Australian samples in an integrative analysis ( N ID = 500–1,696, N observations = 27,023–101,114, M age = 25.38 years, 71% women), we examined how regulation-strategy use varies as a function of three theory-derived contextual features— intensity , controllability , and social features (i.e., the presence and closeness of others). We found limited support that context matters for daily emotion-regulation strategy use. Our study provides a well-powered foundational step to test a theory central to emotion-regulation research and highlights the complexity of capturing strategy–situation fit in daily life.

Psychology of Music

Expressive Priority and Goal Structure and Complexity During Collegiate, Faculty, and Professional Chamber Music Rehearsals

Rebecca A. Roesler, Robin S. Heinsen, Laura K. Hicken

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The purpose of this study was to discover the artistic conceptualizations and priorities of collegiate, faculty, and professional musicians during the moment-to-moment decision-making of a rehearsal. We utilized musicians’ verbalizations during chamber music rehearsals as a vehicle for exploring their thought processes. Analysis 1 investigated the rehearsal targets ensembles prioritized as a percentage of total rehearsal time allocated to each. Analysis 2 investigated the complexity and form of professional, faculty, and collegiate chamber musicians’ goal structures as they attended to musical targets in relation to one another. Professional chamber ensembles prioritized the expressive targets of character and phrasing above all others, and significantly more as a percentage of rehearsal time than did collegiate chamber ensembles. Goal complexity increased with each level of experience from collegiate to professional ensembles; faculty and professional ensembles pursued elemental and technical goals in service of paramount expressive ends such as character and phrasing. We discuss the possible causes for this phenomenon, implications for music education, and recommendations for further research in these areas. We also recommend that teachers consider crafting music learning experiences to facilitate learners’ focus on expressive ends and pursual of proximal goals in service of artistic aims.

Living Criteria: Co-Construction of Evaluative Criteria in Creative Collaboration in the Primary Classroom

Ashleigh Southam, Aleksandra Getman

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Research with both professional musicians and children shows that during creativity, evaluations – such as liking, novelty and structure – shape decision-making. Less is known about how these evaluative processes operate in collaborative classroom settings where creativity also supports learning. This study examined how primary school students evaluate ideas during collaborative creative tasks, particularly in relation to their musical decisions. A qualitative case study was conducted with 18 students (aged 9–10) in a primary classroom across five integrated arts lessons centred on composing and performing rhythmic ostinati. Classroom observations, peer-feedback forms and student interviews were analysed thematically. Findings showed that students co-constructed a ‘Living Criteria’: a shared, dynamic evaluative system guiding idea generation, selection and refinement. This system comprised three components: Task-Specific Congruence (judging ideas by task fit and clarity), Emerging Aesthetic Evaluation (linking humour, enjoyment and ‘liking’ with perceived quality) and Collaborative Sensitivity (balancing idea quality with group harmony). Although limited by its small sample and single-class context, the study demonstrates how children integrate aesthetic, practical and social considerations when working together musically and creatively. The concept of ‘Living Criteria’ offers a framework for understanding how evaluative judgement develops through collaboration, with implications for music pedagogy and creative learning research.

Exploring Musicians’ Perspectives on Decent Work, Creativity, and Well-Being

Liliana Faria, Ana Martins

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This study, grounded in the psychology of working theory (PWT) and self-determination theory (SDT), examined how working conditions shape musicians’ experiences of decent work, intrinsic motivation, artistic identity, creative engagement, and psychological well-being. Sixteen in-depth interviews were conducted with Portuguese musicians, including both freelancers and those with stable contracts. Reflexive thematic analysis identified four overarching themes: (a) job security and precarity, (b) intrinsic motivation, autonomy, and creative engagement, (c) artistic identity and purpose, and (d) well-being and mental health. The findings show that freelance instability undermines security, constrains creative risk-taking, and increases stress, whereas financial and institutional stability supports intrinsic motivation, reinforces artistic identity, and enables creative exploration. Features associated with intrinsic motivation, voluntary engagement, persistence, and psychological investment in creative tasks were observed across both groups. Autonomy itself sustained engagement for some freelancers, highlighting personal resilience and self-directed creativity. The results underscore the interplay between structural conditions (PWT) and individual motivations (SDT), showing that sustainable work environments foster well-being and high-quality creative output. The study provides practical implications for policies, education, and organizational strategies to support healthier, more productive artistic ecosystems.

Does Self-Compassion Moderate the Association Between Music-Specific Stress and Internalizing Symptoms?

Darya Ellalasingham, Ishan N. Vengurlekar, Christopher J. McCarthy

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Music students are a high-risk population for mental health challenges due to the unique sources of stress they encounter. Previous work indicates that these music-specific stressors are associated with higher levels of internalizing symptoms (i.e., depression and anxiety). Consequently, further attention to protective assets and resources for music students is crucial. One construct that has garnered attention from scholars is self-compassion. Prior studies have documented benefits of self-compassion in reducing and attenuating the link between stress and internalizing symptoms. Yet, no study to date has considered whether self-compassion and its six subscales moderate the association between music-study stress and internalizing symptoms. The current study explored whether self-compassion and its six subcomponents moderate the relationship between music-study stress and internalizing symptoms among student musicians. Participants were 151 music students at a public university in the United States. We found a positive association between music-study stress and internalizing symptoms. In addition, results revealed that self-judgment and isolation moderated the link between music-study stress and anxious symptoms, such that at higher levels of self-judgment and isolation, music-study stress evinced stronger associations with anxious symptoms than at lower levels of the two. We discuss the rationales for our findings and practice implications.

Implications of Self-Recording of Audition Performances in Opera Singers: A Multiple Case Study

Melissa Treinkman

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This qualitative multiple case study investigated the potential benefits of audio self-recording during university opera auditions. While commonly employed in individual practice, self-recording remains rare in formal audition settings, possibly hindering performers’ ability to critically evaluate their performance. Five classical university voice students participated in semi-structured interviews after completing an audio-recorded opera audition. Each student reflected on the audition both before and after listening to their recording. Thematic analysis revealed the following three primary themes: (a) self-recording as a tool for recalling specific details of the audition, (b) shifts in self-perception after listening, and (c) reduced post-audition rumination. These findings underscore the need for further research and highlight the potential of audio self-recording as a cost-effective, pedagogically valuable intervention that may support reflective learning, emotional regulation, and more effective audition preparation within higher education settings.

A Lasting Impression: Performance Memory Persists After a Single Musical Exposure

David Duncan, Katya Ness, Ian Cross

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Despite the centrality of memory to music reading and performance, little is known about incidental long-term memory retention of music that is performed at sight. In this study, 19 undergraduate pianists sight-read a series of short, unfamiliar pieces, and then returned 1–3 weeks later to perform the same pieces, without opportunities to see or practise the music in the interim. Pitch, rhythm, and metre errors were all found to decrease in the second reading, with error counts dropping on average by 13% from Reading 1 to Reading 2, while error types and sizes tended to persist across readings. No significant differences were found between those who had a 1-, 2-, or 3-week gap between readings, suggesting that a single brief encounter with a score can have a long-term priming effect. These findings illustrate how robust musical memory can be and may have implications for our understanding of how motor and memory systems support long-term retention in skilled performance.

Music Training, Musical Ability and Language Skills in Children From Disadvantaged Socioeconomic Backgrounds

Carlos dos Santos-Luiz, Lisete Mónico, Gina C. Lemos, Graça Boal-Palheiros

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Research has suggested positive associations between music training and musical ability with language skills. However, these relationships in children from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds remain understudied. One hundred and two children from the second grade of public primary schools, in an economically and socially disadvantaged area of Portugal, participated in this study. Classes were randomly assigned to the Music group (a musical programme of weekly 60-min sessions over 30 weeks) or the Control group. Regression analyses were performed using sex, IQ, musical ability, music training, and language skills (oral comprehension, reading and writing, and grammar). IQ was a significant predictor of all three dimensions of language skills. A significant effect was found for music training concerning oral comprehension, but not for grammar and reading and writing. Children’s musical ability was associated with language skills for oral comprehension, reading and writing, but not for grammar. Among the musical abilities, melody and memory were correlated with language skills. Our study found a positive effect of musical ability on language skills, while music training seems to play a less important role. These results suggest that the effects on language skills may be based on pre-existing differences in cognitive ability and musical ability.

Technology, Mind, and Behavior

Physicians trust artificial intelligence (AI) less in complex cases but rely on it just as much.

Nadine Schlicker, Noëlle Steffens, Ali Kholmovaia, Orestis Loukas, Leander E. Melms, Martin C. Hirsch, Markus Langer

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