Measuring emotion: the Self-Assessment Manikin and the Semantic Differential.
The Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) is a non-verbal pictorial assessment technique that directly measures the pleasure, arousal, and dominance associated with a person's affective reaction to a wide variety of stimuli. In this experiment, we compare reports of affective experience obtained using SAM, which requires only three simple judgments, to the Semantic Differential scale devised by Mehrabian and Russell (An approach to environmental psychology, 1974) which requires 18 different ratings. Subjective reports were measured to a series of pictures that varied in both affective valence and intensity. Correlations across the two rating methods were high both for reports of experienced pleasure and felt arousal. Differences obtained in the dominance dimension of the two instruments suggest that SAM may better track the personal response to an affective stimulus. SAM is an inexpensive, easy method for quickly assessing reports of affective response in many contexts.
Center for Research in Psychophysiology, University of Florida, Gainesville 32610.
M M
MM
Bradley
P J
PJ
Lang
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001143:Arousal; D004644:Emotions; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D012659:Semantic Differential / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*