Introduction 002

Chapter 1. Introduction

Emotion Regulation abilities are the automatic and intentional means by which people influence the emotions they have. These abilities constitute a fundamental part of well-being. Effective emotion regulation enables the individual to adapt to the environment in a positive way. On the other hand, when the consequences are negative, it can potentially become a factor that influences mental or physical ill health.

There are many forms of emotion regulation; some of them are designed by professionals in clinical an therapeutic settings and are called strategies or interventions, and others are shaped naturally by cultural and sociological factors. Strategies in clinical and therapeutic settings have different approaches, based on diverse psychological theories. Out of all those different approaches, this study relies on mindfulness.

Mindfulness, a concept based on Buddhism, has been recently adopted and merged with psychological scientific precepts. According to the Association of APA is very good in this and that. The study of mindfulness trainning provides a window into the mechanisms of personal growth, combining elements of attention, intention and attitude to form an upward spiral of regulatory efficacy (Gross 562).

A state of mindfulness can be achieved by two different skills. The first one is attention deployment, which leads to the the second one, open monitoring. Attention deployment is a skill that can be trained. There are different ways to practice attention focus. Regular instructions for practicing attention training involves focusing attention in candles, mantras, breathing. The repetition of a mantra can help a person discenter from her or his thoughts; training makes it easier to observe these processes.

1.1 Motivation

The interest in contemplative practices is growing rapidly and so is the way technology is being integrated and adopted in this context. quote about meditation wearables . The intention of this study is to propose a tool for wellness based on the analysis of cognitive aspects of music, attention and emotion regulation. The tool, namely Mindful Music Interactive Object (MMIO) is directed towards healthy people rather than those with pathologies. Healthy people also experience unpleasant emotiones like anxiety, stress, depression, hence it is necessary to give importance to this population to prevent a dysregulation leading to a pathology.

MMIO is conceptually based on the integration of mindfulness, a psychological and cognitive theory frame and a music experience. Mindfulness as a way to explore the self regulatory abilities and as the way to set an intention towards a more concrete aspect of awareness which is the emotion regulation abilities. A psychological and cognitive background on the processes of emotion regulation, attention deployment and music activities that innately activate neural patterns. And finally the music experience that is in one hand a sound stimuli that reinforces the positive patterns that affect the neural structures related to emotion regulation abilities and on the other hand a phsysical activity that is directly connected to the attention on the present moment activity, which is to be able to modify and control the sound. Theunique proposition on training the user’s attention in an engaging way through sound is not only important because its physical influence on the brain, but because of its non linguistic characteristics, that can descenter the thoughts and emotions from words and cultural contexts. The sound component works in a two direction way, being a factor that can be modified leads to automatic focus cognitive processes, at the same time that the output reinforces the input via feedback.

1.2 Problem Statement

Mindful Music Interactive Object (MMIO): An attentional control training device to cultivate Mindfulness as a strategy to support Emotion Regulation Abilities in healthy individuals.

MMIO aims to be an assistive music technology tool to help individuals interested in self-consciousness improve their well being and health. MMIO aims to be a support tool for attention control to give the user the ability to enter and exit a vivid meditative state in a short period of time. It is can also be used to support other interventions with defined clinical and therapeutic goals. It is an electronic device for making music as part of a meditative practice for attention control deployment, that leads to meditative states and that, with a mindfulness approach practice can lead into the increase of emotion regulation abilities. This study is limited to a non clinical strategy but can be integrated in other interventions as a tool to include music therapy precepts and music technology.

1.3 Research Focus

The overall aim of this research is to develop a tool that helps people to increase their emotion regulation abilities by achieving meditative states in a more easy way. This proposal needs to take into consideration the existing mindfulness interventions for emotion regulation, as well as the impact of certain music production and perception activities on neural structures implicated in emotion regulation.

Specifically, the objectives of this research are to:

1. Define mindful emotion regulation.

2. Outline the neural structures implicated in music related to emotion regulation abilities.

3. Identify the music experiences that affect those neural structures.

4. Design a mindful emotion regulation music experience that proposes the identified activities.