Respect is an emotion that promotes self-improvement, often experienced when recognizing superior traits in others. The present study aimed to investigate one of its action tendencies. Since previous studies have suggested that respected persons are role models, we hypothesized that respect prolongs the orienting response of paying attention to the persons and examined the related phasic decrease in heart rate (HR). We presented a stimulus (an episode followed by a photograph) about each participant's parents, teachers, affectively respected persons (other than parents and teachers), and the unknown persons as a control. Participants read the episode, looked at the photo, and rated the extent of experiencing respect. As a result, we found that the averaged HR across conditions declined during stimulus presentation but that the change scores of HRs from the minimum value increased only in the control condition: the HRs of the other conditions (parents, teachers, and affectively respected persons) did not recover. Furthermore, we confirmed a significant correlation between respect ratings and the reduction in HRs by performing a partial correlation analysis that controlled for familiarity with the persons. As a pilot study, these results suggest that respect elongates the orienting response.

Musical compositions are distinguished by their unique rhythmic patterns, determined by subtle differences in how regular beats are subdivided. Precise perception of these subdivisions is essential for discerning nuances in rhythmic patterns. While musical rhythm typically comprises sound elements with a variety of timbres or spectral cues, the impact of such spectral variation on our perception of rhythmic patterns remains unclear. Here, we show that consistency in spectral cue affects perceptual accuracy in discriminating subdivided rhythmic patterns. We conducted online experiments using rhythmic sound sequences consisted of band-passed noise bursts to measure discrimination accuracy. Participants were asked to discriminate between a swing-like rhythm sequence, characterized by a 2:1 in interval ratio, and its more or less exaggerated version. This task was also performed under two additional rhythm ratio conditions: an inversed-swing rhythm (1:2 ratio) and a regular subdivision (1:1 ratio). The center frequency of band noises was either held constant or alternated between two values. Our results revealed a significant decrease in discrimination accuracy when the center frequency was alternated, irrespective of the rhythm ratio condition. This suggests that rhythm perception is not only shaped by temporal structure but also affected by spectral properties.