Affective auditory stimuli: characterization of the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS) by discrete emotional categories

Abstract

Although there are many well-characterized affective visual stimuli sets available to researchers, there are few auditory sets available. Those auditory sets that are available have been characterized primarily according to one of two major theories of affect: dimensional or categorical. Current trends have attempted to utilize both theories to more fully understand emotional processing. As such, stimuli that have been thoroughly characterized according to both of these approaches are exceptionally useful. In an effort to provide researchers with such a stimuli set, we collected descriptive data on the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS), identifying which discrete categorical emotions are elicited by each sound. The IADS is a database of 111 sounds characterized along the affective dimensions of valence, arousal, and dominance. Our data complement these characterizations of the IADS, allowing researchers to control for or manipulate stimulus properties in accordance with both theories of affect, providing an avenue for further integration of these perspectives. Related materials may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Web archive at www.psychonomic.org/archive.