Mental representations of affect knowledge

Barrett, Lisa Feldman; Fossum, Thyra A.

doi:10.1080/02699930125711

Cited by 41 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Similarity ratings have also been used to assess preexisting strength (e.g., Barrett & Fossum, 2001;Fischler, 1977;Garskoff & Forrester, 1966;Kammann, 1968). Pairs of words are provided, and subjects judge their associative similarity by reporting a numerical value lying along a defined scale.…”

Section: Study 2 Predicting Similarity Ratingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is preexisting strength? Predicting free association probabilities, similarity ratings, and cued recall probabilities

Nelson

Dyrdal

Goodmon

2005

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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Measuring lexical knowledge poses a challenge to the study of the influence of preexisting knowledge on the retrieval of new memories. Many tasks focus on word pairs, but words are embedded in associative networks, so how should preexisting pair strength be measured? It has been measured by free association, similarity ratings, and co-occurrence statistics. Researchers interpret free association response probabilities as unbiased estimates of forward cue-to-target strength. In Study 1, analyses of large free association and extralist cued recall databases indicate that this interpretation is incorrect. Competitor and backward strengths bias free association probabilities, and as with other recall tasks, preexisting strength is described by a ratio rule. In Study 2, associative similarity ratings are predicted by forward and backward, but not by competitor, strength. Preexisting strength is not a unitary construct, because its measurement varies with method. Furthermore, free association probabilities predict extralist cued recall better than do ratings and co-occurrence statistics. The measure that most closely matches the criterion task may provide the best estimate of the identity of preexisting strength.

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Section: Study 2 Predicting Similarity Ratingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is preexisting strength? Predicting free association probabilities, similarity ratings, and cued recall probabilities

Nelson

Dyrdal

Goodmon

2005

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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“…The 240 similarity ratings were reduced to 120 ratings by averaging the ratings across the corresponding word pairs. This procedure was followed for 3 Some of these data were used to address questions about accuracy and calibration in similarity ratings of emotion terms (Feldman Barrett & Fossum, 2001 …”

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confidence: 99%

“…Valence and arousal dimensions have been identified in emotion-related language across many cultures (e.g., Russell, 1983;Russell, Lewicka, & Niit, 1989), across words sets that differ in size and elements (e.g., Block, 1957;Bush, 1973;Feldman, 1995b, Russell, 1980, and even in very young children (e.g., Russell & Ridgeway, 1983). They represent the basic, semantic properties contained in our knowledge & Fossum, 2001;Russell, 1980;Russell & Feldman Barrett, 1999). The identification of these dimensions as valence and arousal has been verified by empirically comparing the dimension coordinates for the words against explicit ratings of the words on valence and arousal; the explicit judgments were made by independent groups of respondents (Feldman, 1995b;Feldman Barrett & Fossum, 2001;Kring, Feldman Barrett, & Gard, 2003).…”

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confidence: 99%

Feelings or Words? Understanding the Content in Self-Report Ratings of Experienced Emotion.

Barrett

2004

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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354

318

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People differ in the extent to which their verbal reports of experienced emotion are valence focused or arousal focused. Three multimethod studies are reported to explore whether differential focus reflects individual differences in the cognitive structure of emotion language versus differences in phenomenological experience. Although there was some evidence that valence focus and arousal focus were linked to variations differences in cognitive structure, the findings are also consistent with the view that self-report ratings are being driven by the properties of the feelings that are being reported. Implications for the study of experienced emotion are discussed.People report how they feel using words. In everyday life, when we want to know how someone is feeling, we ask. "How are you feeling?" is one of the most ubiquitous questions in our culture. Likewise, for over half a century, psychologists have relied on self-reports to find out how people feel, and for good reason. Decades of behavioral, cognitive, and psychophysiological research have failed to provide clear and consistent measures that unambiguously correspond to the categories of experienced emotion that are found in Western cultures (e.g., anger, sadness, fear): There are neither distinct autonomic footprints for categories of emotion (Cacioppo, Berntson, Larsen, Poehlmann, & Ito, 2000) nor direct connections between the experience of these emotions and facial movements that are perceived as coordinated "expressions" (Russell, Bachorowski, & Fernández-Dols, 2003). 1 As a result, there is no known objective, external measure of the subjective, internal events that we experience as anger, sadness, fear, and so on. If we want to know whether people feel these emotions, we have to ask them.When self-reports are treated as verbal behaviors that can be observed and studied, people use the same emotion words in very different ways to communicate their feelings. For example, the word tired, which is generally understood to refer to a state that is unpleasant and low in arousal, can be used to communicate a feeling of sleepiness (emphasizing the low arousal property), annoyance and misery (as in "I am tired of this," emphasizing the unpleasantness), or fatigued (emphasizing both low arousal and displeasure properties). A key question facing researchers is whether differences in self-report ratings of experienced emotion reflect differences in actual feelings or merely reflect differences in the way that people understand the words that are used in the rating process. One way to address the question of whether selfreports reflect feelings or language is to examine the granularity in such reports. When asked to report how they feel, some individuals represent their experiences with a good deal of precision (high granularity), whereas others represent their experiences in more global terms (low granularity, primarily in terms of pleasure or displeasure). This article examines whether Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lisa F...

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“…That is, the experience-related representations of emotions may be related to episodic knowledge, and purely linguistic representations to semantic knowledge. However, some researchers claim that episodic and semantic knowledge of affect (and memory) are not as distinct as believed, and argue that there is an active interaction between them, especially during the early years of development (Feldman Barrett and Fossum 2001). Evidence for the distinction of the semantic and episodic knowledge was provided by some of our Estonian informants, who intuitively seemed to distinguish between their individual (experience-related, episodic) and collective (linguistically shared, semantic) contents of emotion words.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many authors have pointed to the possibility of methodological bias in the studies of the emotion lexicon (e.g. Alvarado 1998, Feldman Barrett 2004, Feldman Barrett and Fossum 2001, Fillenbaum and Rapoport 1971, Larsen and Diener 1992, Reisenzein 1995, and this was the reason why we turned to self-organizing maps as a method of analysis. Still, our results show that tasks which start from the level of the interrelations between words, and those which start from the level of measuring the qualities of emotional experience, have resulted in two different structures, which agree only in general terms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Structure of Estonian Concepts of Emotion: A Self-Organizational Approach

Vainik¹,

Kirt²

2008

Trames

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Abstract. The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that the way of approaching Estonian concepts of emotion may influence their emergent structure. One hundred participants assessed the semantics of 24 words in two different tests that provided access to the concepts from two different levels of representation of knowledge of emotions. The first task addressed the semantic interrelations of emotion terms (synonymy and antonymy) and the second addressed the qualities of emotional experience as measured on seven scales. The results were visualized by self-organizing maps, revealing two visually different topological layouts, where coherence of the conceptual structure was recognizable only in general terms. Two main clusters, positivity and negativity, were found in both maps. In addition, a cluster of alertness emerged while the concepts were accessed through the interrelations of emotion words. There was much less coherence for local neighbourhood relations. That is, relations which coincided on both maps were identified only in approximately half of the cases.

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Mental representations of affect knowledge

Cited by 41 publications

References 64 publications

What is preexisting strength? Predicting free association probabilities, similarity ratings, and cued recall probabilities

What is preexisting strength? Predicting free association probabilities, similarity ratings, and cued recall probabilities

Feelings or Words? Understanding the Content in Self-Report Ratings of Experienced Emotion.

The Structure of Estonian Concepts of Emotion: A Self-Organizational Approach

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