PDF (PhD Thesis Susan Chipchase) - Nottingham eTheses ...

Figure 4.1. Examples of pairs of negative, neutral and positive objects used in
Experiment 5. These were presented in colour for the experiment.
Emotion ratings.
There were 810 photographs of objects (405 pairs) rated individually
for valence and arousal on an 11-point scale, from -5 (negative) to +5 (positive)
and -5 (calming / soothing) to +5 (exciting / agitating) respectively.
Participants were told to base their ratings on their initial reaction to the objects
in the photographs. Twenty University of Nottingham students conducted the
ratings (15 female; Mean age: 20.15 years, SD 0.75). The negative, neutral and
positive groups of stimuli were given distinct mean average item ratings (with
range and standard deviation in parentheses) for valence of -2.37 (-4.35 to -
0.50; 0.90), 0.60 (-0.45 to 1.55; 0.46) and 2.36 (1.55 to 3.45; 0.41) and for
arousal of 1.91 (0.70 to 3.53; 0.65), -0.26 (-0.45 to 0.5; 0.41) and 0.65 (-1.65 to
2.55; 0.97) respectively.
Perceptual features
i) Similarity.
There were 405 pairs of photographs of objects rated for similarity
between the items in a pair by 10 University of Nottingham students (7 female;
Mean age: 26.80 years, SD 3.46 years). Each pair was rated on a scale of 1
(items incredibly similar) to 10 (items incredibly different). The average ratings
of similarity between items were comparable between the negative, neutral and
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