The principal aim of this doctoral research has been to investigate whether various popular methods of emotion elicitation perform differently in terms of self-reported participant affect - and if so, whether any of them is better able to mimic real-life emotional situations. A secondary goal has been to understand how continuous affect can be classified into discrete categories - whether by using clustering algorithms, or resorting to human participants for creating the classifications. A variety of research directions subserved these main goals: firstly, developing data-driven strategies for selecting 'appropriate' stimuli, and matching them across various stimulus modalities (i.e., words, sounds, images,films and virtual environments / VEs); secondly, comparing the chosen modalities on various self-report measures (with VEs assessed both with and without a head-mounted display / HMD); thirdly, comparing how humans classify emotional information vs. a clustering algorithm; and finally, comparing all five lab-based stimulus modalities to emotional data collected via an experience sampling phone app. Findings / outputs discussed will include a matched database of stimuli geared towards lab use, how the choice of stimulus modality may affect research results, the links (or discrepancies) between human and machine classification of emotional information, as well as range restriction affecting lab stimuli relative to `real-life' emotional phenomena.

A normative experimental study was undertaken to establish whether engaging in positive, negative, and neutral mental imagery affected the reaction rate of participants to positive, negative, and neutral word stimuli. The sample consisted of computer literate, English speaking participants with no history of clinical disorders. A total of 80 participants took part in the study, with 40 participants from either gender. The results of a factorial ANOVA indicated that the type of mental imagery engaged in had a significant effect on the rate at which participants responded to stimuli (p=.00023, F=8.4057), whilst the emotional valence of the stimuli did not have a significant effect (p=.30503, F=1.1877). However, the interaction between the type of mental imagery and the emotional valence of the stimuli was highly significant (p=.00794, F=3.4576), thereby indicating that engaging in positive or negative mental imagery did bias participants towards a faster reaction rate to positive or negative stimuli respectively. / M.A. (Psychology) / Psychology

A normative experimental study was undertaken to establish whether engaging in positive, negative, and neutral mental imagery affected the reaction rate of participants to positive, negative, and neutral word stimuli. The sample consisted of computer literate, English speaking participants with no history of clinical disorders. A total of 80 participants took part in the study, with 40 participants from either gender. The results of a factorial ANOVA indicated that the type of mental imagery engaged in had a significant effect on the rate at which participants responded to stimuli (p=.00023, F=8.4057), whilst the emotional valence of the stimuli did not have a significant effect (p=.30503, F=1.1877). However, the interaction between the type of mental imagery and the emotional valence of the stimuli was highly significant (p=.00794, F=3.4576), thereby indicating that engaging in positive or negative mental imagery did bias participants towards a faster reaction rate to positive or negative stimuli respectively. / M. A. (Psychology) / Psychology