Neurophysiological Assessment of Affective Experience

In the field of Affective Computing the affective experience (AX) of the user during the interaction with computers is of great interest. The automatic recognition of the affective state, or emotion, of the user is one of the big challenges. In this proposal I focus on the affect recognition via physiological and neurophysiological signals. Long‐standing evidence from psychophysiological research and more recently from research in affective neuroscience suggests that both, body and brain physiology, are able to indicate the current affective state of a subject. However, regarding the classification of AX several questions are still unanswered. The principal possibility of AX classification was repeatedly shown, but its generalisation over different task contexts, elicitating stimuli modalities, subjects or time is seldom addressed. In this proposal I will discuss a possible agenda for the further exploration of physiological and neurophysiological correlates of AX over different elicitation modalities and task contexts

Affective Experience, Desire, and Reasons for Action

What is the role of affective experience in explaining how our desires provide us with reasons for action? When we desire that p, we are thereby disposed to feel attracted to the prospect that p, or to feel averse to the prospect that not-p. In this paper, we argue that affective experiences – including feelings of attraction and aversion – provide us with reasons for action in virtue of their phenomenal character. Moreover, we argue that desires provide us with reasons for action only insofar as they are dispositions to have affective experiences. On this account, affective experience has a central role to play in explaining how desires provide reasons for action

The effect of digital signage on shoppers' behavior: the role of the evoked experience

This paper investigates the role of digital signage as experience provider in retail spaces. The findings of a survey-based field experiment demonstrate that digital signage content high on sensory cues evokes affective experience and strengthens customers’ experiential processing route. In contrast, digital signage messages high on “features and benefits” information evoke intellectual experience and strengthen customers’ deliberative processing route. The affective experience is more strongly associated with the attitude towards the ad and the approach behavior towards the advertiser than the intellectual experience. The effect of an ad high on sensory cues on shoppers’ approach to the advertiser is stronger for first-time shoppers, and therefore important in generating loyalty. The findings indicate that the design of brand-related informational cues broadcast over digital in-store monitors affects shoppers’ information processing. The cues evoke sensory and affective experiences and trigger deliberative processes that lead to attitude construction and finally elicit approach behavior towards the advertisers

Theories of Emotion: Integrating philosophy and the social sciences

The study of emotion is being taken on by many different fields of research. In particular, the social sciences are providing many new areas of development within the field. Philosophy is specially equipped to add to the research on human affective experience by synthesizing the many different fields' work on emotion and providing a critical assessment of the current research. Two primary approaches to understanding emotion are (1) viewing emotion as a product of evolution and (2) viewing emotion as a product of social and cultural interaction. I argue, however, that while each of these approaches accurately explains a particular aspect of affective experience, they should work towards a more compatibilistic theory of emotion which views affective experience as a system that includes both evolutionary and socio-cultural influences. The concept of a looping effect is particularly helpful in illustrating the systemic nature of emotion, and I put forward the concept of a looping effect as a way to assess a theory's ability to incorporate the two distinct aspects of affective experience (i.e., evolutionary psychology and social constructionism and their debate over the role cognitive and non-cognitive processes play in affective experience) which traditionally have been opposed to each other in the effort to present a clear theory of emotion

Empathic forecasting: How do we predict other people's feelings?

When making affective forecasts, people commit the impact bias. They overestimate the impact an emotional event has on their affective experience. In three studies we show that people also commit the impact bias when making empathic forecasts, affective forecasts for someone else. They overestimate the impact an emotional event has on someone else's affective experience (Study 1), they do so for friends and strangers (Study 2), and they do so when other sources of information are available (Study 3). Empathic forecasting accuracy, the correlation between one person's empathic forecast and another person's actual affective experience, was lower than between-person forecasting correspondence, the correlation between one person's empathic forecast and another person's affective forecast. Empathic forecasts do not capture other people's actual experience very well but are similar to what other people forecast for themselves. This may enhance understanding between people

Clients\u27 Assessment of the Affective Environment of the Psychotherapy Session: Relationship to Session Quality and Treatment Effectiveness

This study investigated clients\u27 affective experience during therapy. Clients (N = 268) completed Therapy Session Reports (TSR) in an early session of treatment. The two sections of the TSR that assess how the client felt and how the client perceived the therapist to be feeling were combined and factor analyzed. Six stable and meaningful factors were derived (Client Distressed, Client Remoralized, Reciprocal Intimacy, Therapist Confident Involvement, Client Inhibited, and Therapist Distracted). Affect scale scores were created and compared to session quality and treatment effectiveness. Clients\u27 affective experience was highly correlated with patient‐rated session quality. The association between clients\u27 affective experience during the session and treatment effectiveness was fairly strong for relatively brief therapy but insignificant for relatively lengthy treatment. The implications for practitioners, who—in contrast to most measures of therapeutic process—have easy access to clients\u27 in‐session emotional experiences, are discussed

Warholian repetition and the viewer’s affective response to artworks from his Death and Disaster Series

In his Death and Disaster Series, Andy Warhol repeated gruesome images of suicides and car crashes. The artist’s use of repetition has been discussed extensively but not in terms of the direct impact on the viewer’s perceptual and cognitive processing. This paper considers the viewer’s affective experience resulting from repeated exposure to negative images in artworks from the series. We put forward an account of the potential affective experience of Warholian repetition based on existing experimental findings and by way of the artist’s own remarks on the relationship between repetition and affect

The Reliability of Subjective Well-Being Measures

Economists are increasingly analyzing data on subjective well-being. Since 2000, 157 papers and numerous books have been published in the economics literature using data on life satisfaction or subjective well-being, according to a search of Econ Lit.1 Here we analyze the test-retest reliability of two measures of subjective well-being: a standard life satisfaction question and affective experience measures derived from the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM). Although economists have longstanding reservations about the feasibility of interpersonal comparisons of utility that we can only partially address here, another question concerns the reliability of such measurements for the same set of individuals over time. Overall life satisfaction should not change very much from week to week. Likewise, individuals who have similar routines from week to week should experience similar feelings over time. How persistent are individuals’ responses to subjective well-being questions? To anticipate our main findings, both measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction and affective experience) display a serial correlation of about 0.60 when assessed two weeks apart, which is lower than the reliability ratios typically found for education, income and many other common micro economic variables (Bound, Brown, and Mathiowetz, 2001 and Angrist and Krueger, 1999), but high enough to support much of the research that has been undertaken on subjective well-being.

User Experience in Fashion Brand Pages in Social Networking Sites: Values and Affective Experience of Information Interaction

To enhance a current understanding about brand pages in SNS, this study focuses on user experiences during information interactions in brand pages in SNS and investigates how different values of information interactions in brand pages influence affective experiences, which in turn affect users\u27 experiential states (satisfaction, engagement, cognitive elaboration) and thus their loyalty intention toward brand pages. Four facets of values of interest include two instrumental values (perceived control and usefulness) and two non-instrumental values (perceived enjoyment and connectedness). Data were obtained from 290 adult Koreans who followed fashion brand SNS pages using a self-administered online survey. Our results indicate that users\u27 affective experience during information interaction plays a key role in generating positive user experiences with brand pages in SNS. Specifically, affective experience enhances satisfaction, engaging experience, and cognitive elaboration, thereby increasing loyalty intentions toward the brand page. Additionally, perceived controllability, usefulness, and enjoyment create affective experience