The problem. Psychologically plausible ways of The problem Psychologically plausible ways of differentiating emotions from one another and from non-emotions Why care? Emotion theorists: Better understanding of causes and consequences Clinicians: Better prospects for diagnosis and treatment Modelers: Better KR models for reasoning, better artificial characters for simulations, games, (social) robotics

Other affective states/conditions BUT What is an emotion? What isn’t an emotion? Other affective states/conditions Moods? Traits? Preferences?

How do we “get at” emotions? Where to start? How do we “get at” emotions? A typical (but neglected) Cognitive Science problem

Culture? Anthropology/psychology What should we look at? Language? Linguistics Culture? Anthropology/psychology The real world? Anthropology/psychology Self-reports? Social Psychology Faces? Anthropology/psychology Bodily changes? Physiology Behavior? Behavioral Psychology Individuals? Personality Psychology Animal models? Animal Psychology Interacting Processes? Artificial Intelligence

How can we identify the things we want to study? How do we “get at” emotions? How can we identify the things we want to study? Language seems like obvious starting point?

But in any given language, which words refer to emotions? English > 2000 candidates Difficult to properly sample emotion space e.g. Russell’s (1980) circumplex model

? The model proposes two orthogonal dimensions: (un)pleasantness or valence, and activation, arousal, or intensity Examples of problems: 1. In the model, angry is as similar to afraid as to annoyed, even though angry and afraid are quite different emotions. Makes no sense.

angry and annoyed are qualitatively similar, angry and afraid are not intense angry and annoyed are qualitatively similar, angry and afraid are not lost in a circumplex representation afraid angry annoyed unpleasant

Examples of problems: 2. anger is less intense than afraid, but more unpleasant Makes no sense

anger is less intense than afraid, but more unpleasant. model loses important information afraid angry annoyed unpleasant

Problem partly due to taking too simplistic approach Probably, intensity dimension should be potency Probably, need a third dimension for intensity Problem of calibration of intensity.

Further evidence that intensity dimension isn’t intensity Direct intensity ratings show “anger” is more intense than “afraid” (Frijda, Ortony, Sonnemans, & Clore,1992)

Mean typical value for “anger”  7.3

Mean typical value for “afraid”  6.3

emotions  words mapping problem Language? emotions  words mapping problem In any language, which words refer to emotions? Different emotions-to-lexical-item mappings: 1. one  many (anger emotion  19 lexical items) 2. one  one (relief emotion) 3. one  none (“fears confirmed” emotion)

Starting with words is a problem Criteria for sampling items? Many are not emotions words Confounds words referring to different emotion types (anger vs fear) with words referring to same type but with different intensity (anger vs annoyed) Garbage in, garbage out Conclusion that emotions vary in valence and intensity neither interesting or informative

A linguistic approach to determining the referents of words in the affective lexicon If words like “sleepy,” “droopy,” “violent,” and “abandoned” don’t refer to emotions, we shouldn’t use them or expect a theory to account for them How can we tell to what an affective word refers? we need a theory, and we need to test it

conditions internal external non-mental mental cognition focal subjective evaluations e.g., sexy objective evaluations e.g., abandoned non-mental mental physical and bodily states e.g., aroused, tired cognition focal affect focal behavior focal affective states such e.g., happy, sad affective-behavioral conditions e.g., cheerful, glum affective-cognitive conditions e.g., encouraged behavioral-cognitive conditions e.g., careful cognitive conditions e.g., certain

A linguistic approach to determining the referents of words in the affective lexicon Test the theory: Linguistic context: “being x” vs. “feeling x” “feeling x” adds affect that simply “being x” might not have, so x might seem emotional even when it isn’t

Linguistic analysis “feeling x” = to experience the feelings typically associated with being x the feelings typically associated with being x = the emotions one has when one believes that one is x, and one cares that one is x “feeling abandoned” adds affect that simply “being abandoned” does not have, so abandoned seems emotional even though it isn’t

Linguistic judgment data (Ortony, Clore, & Foss,1987) To what degree do you think “feeling x” refers to an emotion ? To what degree do you think “being x” refers to an emotion ? For good examples of emotions, there should be no difference Discriminant analyses confirmed eight distinct patterns of scale values

conditions internal external non-mental mental cognition focal subjective evaluations e.g., sexy objective evaluations e.g., abandoned non-mental mental physical and bodily states e.g., aroused, tired cognition focal affect focal behavior focal affective states such e.g., happy, sad affective-behavioral conditions e.g., cheerful, glum affective-cognitive conditions e.g., encouraged behavioral-cognitive conditions e.g., careful cognitive conditions e.g., certain

An empirical criterion for what words refer to emotions non-mental internal external mental conditions affect focal behavior focal cognition focal physical and bodily states e.g., aroused, tired subjective evaluations e.g., sexy objective evaluations e.g., abandoned cognitive conditions e.g., certain behavioral-cognitive conditions e.g., careful affective-cognitive conditions e.g., encouraged affective-behavioral conditions e.g., cheerful, glum affective states such e.g., happy, sad An empirical criterion for what words refer to emotions Some examples better than others better examples worse examples