[Aleader-dev] Re: direction

[Joshua N Pritikin]

[In this email, I have responded to only some of your points
which seem urgent.  I will respond to the remaining points later.

One more note: For easy of discussion I assume "emotion" =
"affective state".]

On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 08:43:46PM -0500, William L. Jarrold wrote:
> > > o I did not really get passed a thorough checkout of "celebrate
> > > presence", i.e. Item #31.  However, I did a random leap and ended up
> > > looking at "You think I'm afraid of you big fuck?" from Goodwill
> > > Hunting.  This appeared to be classified as admiration (there was a box
> > > checked next to "[+] admires [0].").
> >
> > Perhaps it seems strange to classify this situation as "admires"?
> > "Admires" is actually a _general_ category.
> >
> > This situation also classifies to the _specific_ category
> > "haughty / arrogant" (which is a sub-type of admires).
> 
> I don't see haughty as being a sub-case of admires, unless admires
> includes self-admiration?

Yes, it does.

To be precise, the appraisal category is:

  "I am _expecting_ you to admire me."
  (I=Will, you=Chuckie, spoken in a pushy tone of voice)

> Film clips are a nice way to illustrate an emotion concept by
> way of several examples....Btw, it would help if your writings made the
> following clear:
> 
> o Any given character in a given film clip may be depicting
> several different emotions at once.
> 
> o A set of characters that are simultaneously present in a film clip
> need not be depicting identical emotions.
> 
> o The overall emotional tone of depicted by a film clip is something that
> is distinct from what each of the individual characters in a film is
> depicting.

I agree.  I don't have a list like that because I doubted whether
I could imagine all the possible funny cases.  Maybe I should
just include your list and keep expanding it as I learn more.

Which reminds me ... I have tried to explain this next point
a few times.  Tell me if you understand (or if you already
understood previously):

To achieve consistency, the Aleader appraisal instructs the
analyst to follow some rules which narrow down on an immediate
emotion.  These rules are designed to turn random film into
a repeatable, narrow, single emotion sequence, independent
of the analyst.  Obviously film is more than a single emotion
sequence, but film is hard to analyze without some simplification.

> My intuition tells me that you are into both the researchy and the
> personal growth aspects of this CD.  However, my intuition also tells
> me that you have not yet developed separate strategies for these two
> aspects.

Correct.

> One thing that would make it *much* easier to test gobs of subjects would
> be to have them simply point there browser at a website.  The CD thing can
> be a pain....If you can do the website thing then you can do something
> like Open Mind.  How hard would it be to do your thing via a website
> rather than a linux isa cd?

My main worry with putting the whole thing on a web site is that
I'll attract a cease & desist court-order for broadcasting
copywrited material (the films).

It doesn't matter that I am legally protected by "fair use for
non-profit education".  I simply can't afford to fight a court
case, even if my actions are supported by the law.

I believe that asking film studios for permission is also perilous.

(Can you imagine my state of mind before I figured out how to make
a bootable CD?  I had this cool project, but it was impossible to
show to anyone!)

> It would probably be most interesting to compare
> three different categorization schemes.  Maybe yours, plus Ortony's
> plus some scheme that should show now sig difference.

Oh, OK.  Cool.

I wonder about the procedual methodology.

I speculate that Aleader has a larger vocabulary of emotions
(about 50) than most other schemes.  Roseman96 identifies
just 17 emotions.  I believe OCC proposes 22 emotions.

How should we deal with that?  Would we carefully select
examples which are classifiable in any of the three schemes?

> We could also consider a conference presentation.  One can often get
> both a conference and a paper out of the same piece of research -- there
> are different aspects, different angles on a given project....There is
> also the cynical notion of "the publicon".  The smallest publishable
> unit.  People with physics backgrounds like to mention such things.

Yah!

On the other hand, I already did a study here in India last year
with about 25 students.  The only problem was that I didn't measure
anything interesting.  I guess the trick is to find a middle
ground between too big and too small.

The other point is that, as an academic outsider, I suspect I
will learn a lot from the publication process.  I bet my whole
presentation will improve tremendously just by immersing myself
in academic procedures and protocol.

> Yeah, sure.  I'm a little tentative bc I feel like brainstorming more,
> talking to my advisor, exploring other ideas, but my intuition tells
> me that there isa at least a 55 % chance that we will not come
> up with a better idea working with the same level of intensity over the
> next 2 weeks.

Part of the reason I'm pushing for a plan is that I have an
appointment with a local psychology professor on Aug 11 (evening).
I'll write up a draft research proposal.  Hopefully you will have
time to review it once prior to the meeting.

> Getting human subjects is a bitch.  You have to go through all these
> committees proving that the subjects won't be harmed.  I don't know
> how this works in places like India.

India is easy.  If the basic research proposal is acceptable
then I can probably get human subjects with a handshake.

> If one wants to publish in Cognition
> and Emotion what kinds of human subjects review must one complete?
> Well, I have access to Diane (my dissertation advisor) who is well
> ensconsced in the academic cliques that do all this stuff.

Hrm, will a "human subjects review" also apply to any
Indian subjects?

> Cool.  How do I learn the model.  Sorry, I'm afraid I'm asking an
> extremely obvious question.  My life as an psychology intern -- just
> starting this week -- can be very stressful, so I might forget stuff.

+ Read my comments on Roseman96.  I emailed them yesterday.  If you
didn't receive them then let me know.  I'll re-send.

+ Finish the tutorial.  You don't have to go through _every_
situation.  Just go through enough examples that you "get a feel"
for the definition of each of the 10 easy emotion categories.

+ After that, I'm not sure what to suggest.  Perhaps you can try
reading the reference manual (the doc you printed out and looked
at each page for 2 seconds).

Make sure to look at the latest version though.  I made some edits
recently.  It is somewhat shorter now.  Here's the new url:

  http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/aleader/htdocs/aleader-ref.pdf

-- 
.. Sensual .. Perceptual .. Cognitive .. Emotional .. Oh My!