valence
Enable an agent to identify, assess and use claims about how pleasant or unpleasant an experience or stimulus is while preserving uncertainty about whose evaluation is being represented.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
recalled by Codex without web access - no source was read
Researched by: Codex
Purpose and description
Enable an agent to identify, assess and use claims about how pleasant or unpleasant an experience or stimulus is while preserving uncertainty about whose evaluation is being represented.
In affective psychology, valence is the dimension of an experience or evaluation that characterises it as pleasant or unpleasant, or positive or negative, although theories differ on whether these descriptions capture a single underlying property.
It can be Record a valence claim with its subject, target, construct definition and assessment context.; Select a representation that preserves the distinction between neutral, mixed and unknown valence.; Compare assessments when their constructs, anchors and temporal references are compatible.; Track changes in valence while retaining changes in context and assessment method.; Request clarification or additional evidence when a stimulus label is being substituted for an individual's experience.; Use a sufficiently supported valence assessment to inform an explicitly authorized adaptation, then reassess the subject's response..
Distinguishing features
A valence claim specifies pleasantness-unpleasantness or evaluative positivity-negativity; an activation score alone does not qualify.
A claim about a stimulus's valence identifies whose response or which population norm it represents; the stimulus label alone does not establish an individual's experience.
Valence does not identify a complete emotion: experiences can share a valence assignment while receiving different emotion labels.
Negative evaluation does not by itself establish avoidance, and positive evaluation does not by itself establish approach; the behavioral relation must be recorded separately.
A middle score is not automatically neutral: its interpretation must distinguish neutrality, mixed feelings, uncertainty and missing evidence.
Scope
+ Definitions of affective valence and their theoretical commitments
+ Experienced pleasantness or unpleasantness and its attribution to a subject
+ Evaluative positivity or negativity attributed to stimuli and anticipated outcomes
+ Bipolar, separate-positive-and-negative, and categorical representations
+ Methods, context and uncertainty of valence assessments
- Chemical valence and atomic bonding capacity
- Linguistic valency and argument structure
- Arousal, activation and physiological intensity as independent dimensions
- Complete emotion categories, mood models and psychiatric diagnoses
- Moral worth, economic value and preference rankings beyond their explicit relation to affective evaluation
Characteristics
- Construct interpretation
- Experienced pleasantness; evaluative appraisal; stimulus norm; anticipated affect; explicitly defined alternative Prevents different meanings of positive and negative from being treated as one measurement.
- Subject and target
- Experiencing or evaluating subject linked to an experience, stimulus or outcome Separates the bearer of an experience from the object being evaluated.
- Valence assessment
- Instrument-specific score with anchors and range, or separately reported positive and negative scores; no assumed universal unit Makes direction and magnitude interpretable without assuming incompatible instruments are interchangeable.
- Polarity configuration
- Positive; negative; neutral; mixed; indeterminate; unassessed, where supported by the chosen representation Preserves mixed affect and distinguishes absent evidence from an assessed neutral state.
- Temporal and situational reference
- Current, recalled or anticipated assessment linked to a time interval and relevant context Prevents judgments from different moments or situations from being silently combined.
- Evidence basis
- Self-report; observer judgment; population norm; behavioral inference; physiological inference; computational estimate Exposes how directly an assessment supports a claim about the subject's experience.
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 5 bundles · 9 layers · 15 findings · 24 questions.
Valence meaning Establishes which sense of valence a claim uses and which theoretical distinctions it retains.
The absent registry definition makes sense selection necessary, and affective uses can themselves refer to different constructs.
Experienced and evaluated valence
Separates felt pleasantness from judgments that something is positive or negative.
Declared valence construct
Record the definition adopted by a claim, its proponent or framework, and whether it concerns feeling or evaluation.
- Does valence mean felt pleasantness, evaluative appraisal, anticipated affect or another explicitly defined construct here? definition
- Which author, framework or instrument supplies this definition, and what competing definition would change the interpretation? provenance
Adjacent affective dimensions
Sets boundaries with activation, emotion identity and motivational direction.
Valence-specific evidence
Require evidence that addresses positive-negative or pleasant-unpleasant quality rather than importing it from a neighboring dimension.
- What establishes valence independently of arousal, emotion labels or observed approach and avoidance? boundary
- What would count as an instance of the chosen valence construct, and what superficially similar observation would not? definition
Subject, target and context Locates a valence attribution in an individual's experience, an evaluation or a population-level description.
An agent must know whose valence is being represented before interpreting a supposedly positive or negative thing.
Attribution of valence
Identifies the subject, evaluated target and level of aggregation.
Experiencer versus stimulus label
Keep individual experience, observer attribution and normative stimulus ratings distinct.
- Whose experience or evaluation does this valence claim describe, and what is its target? definition
- Is the attribution based on this subject's report, someone else's judgment or a specified population's ratings? provenance
Situated valence
Captures circumstances and temporal perspective that qualify an assessment.
Assessment reference
Record whether the assessment concerns a current episode, remembered experience or expected outcome, together with relevant circumstances.
- Which episode and time interval are assessed, and is the judgment current, retrospective or anticipatory? measurement
- Which changes in goals, social setting or stimulus meaning would require a new assessment rather than reuse of this one? boundary
Polarity and measurement Defines how valence is represented and how observations support that representation.
A single positive-negative score can lose distinctions that matter for recognizing neutrality, ambivalence and uncertainty.
Polarity representation
Makes the chosen relationship between positive and negative explicit.
Neutral, mixed and unknown
Specify whether the representation permits simultaneous positive and negative assessments and how it distinguishes these from a neutral or unavailable assessment.
- Does the framework use one bipolar dimension, separate positive and negative dimensions or categories, and why? definition
- How does the assessment distinguish neutrality from mixed feelings, rapid alternation, uncertainty and missing data? measurement
Assessment method
Records the instrument, anchors and evidence needed to interpret an assessment.
Interpretable valence score
Tie each reported value to its elicitation method, scale meaning and uncertainty rather than treating it as a universal quantity.
- What prompt, instrument, response anchors and scoring procedure produced the assessment? measurement
- If valence is inferred from behavior, physiology or computation, what validation supports that inference for this subject or population? provenance
- What evidence permits comparison or conversion between this assessment and another instrument's result? boundary
Change and use Governs interpretation of valence changes and their use in agent decisions.
An agent needs to distinguish an observed affective change from a measurement change and avoid equating pleasantness with the subject's overall goals.
Valence over time
Assesses trajectories while preserving context, sampling and aggregation choices.
Supported valence change
Describe changes only at the temporal resolution and comparability supported by the observations.
- Were successive assessments made with compatible constructs, anchors and temporal windows? measurement
- Does an apparent change reflect the experience, a changed target or context, or a changed assessment procedure? boundary
Valence-informed actions
Connects assessments to bounded actions and subsequent feedback.
Action without preference substitution
Use valence as one input to an authorized decision while retaining the subject's stated goals and checking the outcome.
- What action does this assessment support, and what additional evidence is needed about the subject's preferences and goals? action
- How will the agent check whether an adaptation produced the intended experience and revise it if the subject reports otherwise? action
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- The affective sense is inferred from the quality-domain context; the registry records no explicit sense.
- Researchers should check whether the intended theory uses one bipolar dimension or separate positive and negative dimensions.
- This is recall-based information; no sources or instrument documentation were consulted.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of valence this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Kinds and varieties
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Positive valence
- Negative valence
- Neutral valence
- Mixed positive and negative affect, represented separately in some models
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of valence this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Describing emotions alongside dimensions such as arousal.
- Collecting pleasantness ratings for images, sounds and other experimental stimuli.
- Evaluating users' emotional responses to products and interfaces.
- Annotating positive and negative evaluative content in sentiment analysis.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of valence this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Self-reported affective valence using the Self-Assessment Manikin - Commonly scored from 1 to 9; endpoint coding must be checked for the implementation - Dimensionless rating
- Self-reported pleasure using a bipolar rating scale - Unpleasant through neutral to pleasant; numerical endpoints depend on the instrument - Dimensionless rating
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of valence this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Treating pleasantness, approval, desirability and approach motivation as interchangeable.
- Confusing valence with arousal: both pleasant and unpleasant experiences can have high or low arousal.
- Interpreting a midpoint rating as neutral when it may represent simultaneous positive and negative feelings.
- Assuming a stimulus has the same valence for every person and context.
- Treating facial expressions, physiological signals or text polarity as direct measurements of experienced valence.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of valence this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Language and cultural conventions can affect emotion labels, stimulus evaluations and rating-scale use.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of valence this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Arousal - Arousal describes activation or intensity; valence describes pleasantness or positivity versus unpleasantness or negativity.
- Emotion - An emotion is a broader episode or state; valence is one property used to describe it.
- Approach-avoidance motivation - Motivation concerns tendencies to engage or withdraw; these do not map perfectly onto positive and negative experience.
- Sentiment polarity - Sentiment polarity classifies evaluative content in an expression; affective valence can describe an experience without an expressed opinion.
- Chemical valence - Chemical valence concerns atomic combining capacity, rather than affective quality.
- Linguistic valency - Linguistic valency concerns the arguments licensed by a predicate, rather than pleasantness or evaluation.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of valence this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
What the second pass must settle
- Does vr.tr.valence specifically denote affective valence, broader evaluative polarity or another sense, and what registry provenance resolves this?
- Which reference frameworks should anchor the distinction between experienced pleasantness and positive-negative appraisal?
- Under which intended uses should valence be represented as bipolar, as separate positive and negative dimensions, or categorically?
- Which instruments and inference methods have adequate support for the populations, languages and contexts this registry must cover?
- What evidence and temporal resolution are needed to distinguish simultaneous mixed affect from alternating positive and negative experiences?