Glossary // Glossary term Theoretical

Valence

The pleasantness or unpleasantness of an affective state, one of the two dimensions commonly used to describe affect alongside arousal. Valence is most directly assessed by self-report, and to some extent by facial muscle activity and behavioural measures. Autonomic measures such as skin conductance track arousal more than valence, which is one reason physiological data alone cannot establish whether a person feels good or bad.

Where the site uses it

  • Instrumented emotion: why the telemetry here is conceptual

    Affective computing promises to infer emotion as if it were a system metric. The evidence on facial movements and autonomic signals, together with questions of consent, explains why every metric in this artifact is an artistic value.

Studies behind it

The works the definition rests on, with the level of evidence each was appraised at.

  • Mauss, I. B., & Robinson, M. D. (2009). Measures of emotion: A review. doi:10.1080/02699930802204677

    Level D Review

    Supports the claims that measures tend to reflect dimensions rather than discrete states, converge only modestly, and that there is no gold-standard measure of emotion. Narrative review.