Clarifying the Conceptualization, Dimensionality, and Structure of Emotion: Response to Barrett and Colleagues

Abstract

We present a mathematically based framework distinguishing the dimensionality, structure, and conceptualization of emotion-related responses. Our recent findings indicate that reported emotional experience is high-dimensional, involves gradients between categories traditionally thought of as discrete (e.g., 'fear', 'disgust'), and cannot be reduced to widely used domain-general scales (valence, arousal, etc.). In light of our conceptual framework and findings, we address potential methodological and conceptual confusions in Barrett and colleagues' commentary on our work.

Keywords: dimensional; discrete; emotion; experience; self-report; structure.

Figure 1

(A) A state space of emotion underlying reported emotional experience. The number of dimensions (colored vectors) determines the dimensionality [3], or variety, of emotion. The distribution of emotional states within clusters (discrete families of states) or gradients bridging broadly different states [4] determines the structure of emotion [3]. How categories and affective scales describe the space, and whether each are separately sufficient to infer the emotional state, determines the conceptualization [5] of emotion. Numbers represent a report ofthe magnitude of a given feature (1–5 Likert) or quantity of individuals reporting it (n = 5), which can be used similarlyto infer position in the state space [6]. (B) Degree to which the explainable variance in category judgments was captured by affective scale judgments, and vice versa. Reported experiences of 34 emotion categories (e.g., amusement, awe) largely captured the information available in 14 commonly-measured affective scales (e.g., valence, arousal, safety) but to a large extent could not be explained by the affective scales.