Abstract
The Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) are a commonly used set of 1,034 words characterized on the affective dimensions of valence, arousal, and dominance. Traditionally, studies of affect have used stimuli characterized along either affective dimensions or discrete emotional categories, but much current research draws on both of these perspectives. 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 characterization of stimuli, we have collected descriptive data on the ANEW to identify which discrete emotions are elicited by each word in the set. Our data, coupled with previous characterizations of the dimensional aspects of these words, will allow researchers to control for or manipulate stimulus properties in accordance with both dimensional and discrete emotional views, and provide an avenue for further integration of these two perspectives. Our data have been archived at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ali, N., &Cimino, C. R. (1997). Hemispheric localization of perception and memory for emotional verbal stimuli in normal individuals.Neuropsychology,11, 114–125.
Anderson, A. K., &Phelps, E. A. (2001). Lesions of the human amygdala impair enhanced perception of emotionally salient events.Nature,411, 305–309.
Borod, J. C., Andelman, F., Obler, L. K., Tweedy, J. R., &Welkowitz, J. (1992). Right hemisphere specialization for the identification of emotional words and sentences: Evidence from stroke patients.Neuropsychologia,30, 827–844.
Bradley, M. M., Codispoti, M., Cuthbert, B. N., &Lang, P. J. (2001). Emotion and motivation I: Defensive and appetitive reactions in picture processing.Emotion,1, 276–298.
Bradley, M. M., Codispoti, M., Sabatinelli, D., &Lang, P. J. (2001). Emotion and motivation II: Sex differences in picture processing.Emotion,1, 300–319.
Bradley, M. M., &Lang, P. J. (1999).Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW): Stimuli, instruction manual, and affective ratings (Tech. Report C-1). Gainesville: University of Florida, Center for Research in Psychophysiology.
Brouillet, T., &Syssau, A. (2005). Connection between the evaluation of positive or negative valence and verbal responses to a lexical decision making task.Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology,59, 255–261.
Carroll, N. C., &Young, A. W. (2005). Priming of emotion recognition.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,58A, 1173–1197.
Cato, M. A., Crosson, B., Gökçay, D., Soltysik, D., Wierenga, C., Gopinath, K., et al. (2004). Processing words with emotional connotation: An fMRI study of time course and laterality in rostral frontal and retinosplenial cortices.Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience,16, 167–177.
Ekman, P. (1993). Facial expression and emotion.American Psychologist,48, 384–392.
Eviatar, Z., &Zaidel, E. (1991). The effects of word length and emotionality on hemispheric contributions to lexical decision.Neuropsychologia,29, 415–428.
Fossati, P., Hevenor, S. J., Graham, S. J., Grady, C., Keightley, M. L., Craik, F., &Mayberg, H. (2003). In search of the emotional self: An fMRI study using positive and negative emotional words.American Journal of Psychiatry,160, 1938–1945.
Graves, R., Landis, T., &Goodglass, H. (1980). Laterality and sex differences for visual recognition of emotional and non-emotional words.Neuropsychologia,19, 95–102.
Hans, P., Eckart, A., &Hermann, A. (1997). The cortical processing of perceived emotion: A DC-potential study on affective speech prosody.NeuroReport,8, 623–627.
Inaba, M., Nomura, M., &Ohira, H. (2005). Neural evidence of effects of emotional valence on word recognition.International Journal of Psychophysiology,57, 165–173.
Keltner, D., Ellsworth, P. C., &Edwards, K. (1993). Beyond simple pessimism: Effects of sadness and anger on social perception.Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,64, 740–752.
Kuchinke, L., Jacobs, A. M., Grubich, C., Vo, M. L., Conrad, M., &Herrmann, M. (2005). Incidental effects of emotional valence in single word processing: An fMRI study.NeuroImage,28, 1022–1032.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., &Cuthbert, B. N. (2005).International Affective Picture System (IAPS): Affective ratings of pictures and instruction manual (Tech. Report A-6). Gainesville: University of Florida, Center for Research in Psychophysiology.
Lang, P. J., Greenwald, M. K., Bradley, M. M., &Hamm, A. O. (1993). Looking at pictures: Affective, facial, visceral, and behavioral reactions.Psychophysiology,30, 261–273.
Lerner, J. S., &Keltner, D. (2001). Beyond valence: Toward a model of emotion-specific influences on judgment and choice.Cognition & Emotion,14, 473–493.
Levenson, R. W. (2003). Autonomic specificity and emotion. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.),Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 212–224). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, P. A., Critchley, H. D., Rotshtein, P., &Dolan, R. J. (2007). Neural correlates of processing valence and arousal in affective words.Cerebral Cortex,17, 742–748.
Mehrabian, A., &Russell, J. A. (1974).An approach to environmental psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mikels, J. A., Fredrickson, B. L., Larkin, G. R., Lindberg, C. M., Maglio, S. J., &Reuter-Lorenz, P. A. (2005). Emotional category data on images from the International Affective Picture System.Behavior Research Methods,37, 626–630.
Morris, J. S., Friston, K. J., Büchel, C., Frith, C. D., Young, A. W., Calder, A. J., et al. (1998). A neuromodulatory role for the human amygdala in processng emotional facial expressions.Brain,121, 47–57.
Morris, J. S., Frith, C. D., Perrett, D. I., Rowland, D., Young, A. W., Calder, A. J., &Dolan, R. J. (1996). A differential neural response in the human amygdala to fearful and happy facial expressions.Nature,383, 812–815.
Phillips, M. L., Young, A. W., Scott, S. K., Calder, A. J., Andrew, C., Giampietro, V., et al. (1998). Neural responses to facial and vocal expressions of fear and disgust.Proceedings of the Royal Society B,265, 1809–1817.
Scott, S. K., Young, A. W., Calder, A. J., Hellawell, D. J., Aggleton, J. P., &Johnson, M. (1997). Impaired auditory recognition of fear and anger following bilateral amygdala lesions.Nature,385, 254–257.
Smith, C. A., &Ellsworth, P. C. (1985). Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion.Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,48, 813–838.
Van Strien, J. W., &Morpurgo, M. (1992). Opposite hemispheric activations as a result of emotionally threatening and non-threatening words.Neuropsychologia,30, 845–848.
Yik, M. S. M., Russell, J. A., &Barrett, L. F. (1999). Structure of self-reported current affect: Integration and beyond.Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,77, 600–619.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported in part by the Indiana METACyt Initiative of Indiana University.
Electronic supplementary material
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stevenson, R.A., Mikels, J.A. & James, T.W. Characterization of the Affective Norms for English Words by discrete emotional categories. Behavior Research Methods 39, 1020–1024 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192999
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192999