1. 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

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

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

4. 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

5. 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?

6. 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

7. ?
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.

8. 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

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

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

11. 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.

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

13. Mean typical value for “anger”  7.3

14. Mean typical value for “afraid”  6.3

16. 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)

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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