An Affective Aspect of Computer-Mediated Communication : Analysis of Communications by

Transcription

1 An Affective Aspect of Computer-Mediated Communication Analysis of Communications by Yuuki KATO*, Kazue SUGIMURA** and Kanji AKAHORI* * Tokyo Institute of Technology, Graduate School of Decision Sciences and Technology, Dept. of Human System Science, , Ookayama, Megro-ku, Tokyo, , Japan Tel <yuuki@ak.cradle.titech.ac.jp>, <akahori@ak.cradle.titech.ac.jp> **Daito Bunka University, 560, Iwadono, Higasimatuyama-city, Saitama, , Japan <sugimura@ak.cradle.titech.ac.jp> Abstract We focus on an affective aspect of communications by . In this study university students communicated their information to anonymous companions by to examine the relations between their affective traits, affective states and affective interpretations. Before the communication, as the affective traits, they were asked to give the frequencies of 12 affects that they experienced every day. Then, whenever they received the s, using questionnaires, we asked them as follows (1) what affect they produced affective states (2) how they interpreted companions affect affective interpretations. By the result of the factor analysis of the data of the affective traits, the subjects divided into the three groups group of Negative Affects, Positive Affects and Affects of Enemies. The subjects in each group were compared about the correlation between the affective interpretations and states. We found that in communications by when the subjects interpreted their companions affective states as positive affective states, they might tend to feel positive affects. But, when they interpreted their companions affective states as negative affects, their affective states might be influenced by their affective traits. This may demonstrate that the affective traits influence on our affective states in communications. Keywords; , affective traits, affective states, affective interpretations, communication 1. INTRODUCTION Recently, many computers have been introduced in schools. The considerable spread of various computers in schools certainly leads to increase of computer-mediated communication by students. In schools daily computer-mediated communication may lead not only to the expectation of effective learning but also lead to affective problems (e.g., Siegel, Dubrovsky, Kiesler & Muguire, 1986). Therefore, the consideration about the affects caused in computer-mediated communication must be necessary for the future of education. We have known experimentally that the person perception concerns affects similar to that affects influence the cognitive process. Since 1980, considerable number of studies has been made on the relationship between the cognition and the affects in the field of the cognitive psychology, and many new findings have been acquired (e.g., Bower, 1981; Blaney, 1986; Forgas, 1991). There are mainly two approaches in the study relevant to the affects and the cognition (Rusting, 1998; Sakagami, 1999; Ito, 2000). One is the induction of mood states (e.g., Velten, 1968). Cognitive characteristics of the subject in one mood induced by it are examined. The other is the approach based on persons individual differences (e.g., Beck, 1976). This examines the relationship between the cognition and the affective traits as personality traits or the stable affect tendencies, which people individually have. Using interpretations of the affects in ambiguous figures, Sakagami (1999) has examined which affective states or affective traits have influenced subjects interpretations as information processes. She suggested that information processes might be more influenced by affective traits rather than affective states. Many studies related to communications have been examined (e.g., Marttunen & Laurinen, 2001). For example, based on the opposite values in three dimensions of communication synchrony, modality and copresence, Sannomiya and Kawaguchi (1999) investigated the cognitive characteristics of computer-mediated

2 communication and face-to-face communication. In their conclusion, they suggested that face-to-face communication might support the discussion for production of ideas, while computer-mediated communication support the discussion for the examination of ideas. If the cognitive characteristics have been different in the two kinds of communication, the affective characteristics in the computer-mediated communication were also different from other communications. We focus on the affective aspect of computer-mediated communication prior to the comparison between the two kinds of communication; computer-mediated communication and face-to-face communication. Finally, we used the terms related to affect in the following senses. Generally affects are considered to contain emotions, moods and physiological drives, and to be a concept of a wide sense. There are various views about the distinction between emotions and moods, but some researchers commonly suggest that a basis of the distinction is duration (e.g., Ekman, 1994; Watson & Clark, 1994) or preceding factors (e.g., Ekman, 1994; Frijda, 1994). Emotions have clear preceding factors and objects, and short duration, while moods have unclear preceding factors and objects, and comparatively long duration. Emotions function as either a state or a trait (Izard, 1996). The above is mentioned the emotions as a state. On the other hand, the emotional traits are defined from frequency of special emotional experiences or the low of threshold values of special emotional responses (e.g., Lazarus, 1994). In this study we use an affect that has a wide sense, because in the various preceding studies the use of other terms lack unity. So emotion traits refer to affective traits, and moods refer to affective states. 2. OBJECTIVES The present study aims to investigate an affective aspect of communication by . In the experiment for this study, using , 42 university students each communicated with an anonymous companion, after they answered the questionnaire measuring their own affective traits. In the communications by , whenever they received from their companions, they were asked to answer their interpretations of the companions affective states and their own affective states. The two kinds of questions above refer to affective interpretations and affective states respectively in this study. Then, as Figure 1 showing, by the factor analysis of the data of the affective traits, the subjects are divided into small groups. The subjects in each group are examined about the relationship between the affective interpretations and the affective states. The affective characteristics of each subjects groups are cleared. And, we demonstrate that in practical communications by the affective traits are influential. Post Group1 Pre-Group (n=42) Factor analysis Post Group2 The affective characteristics of each groups are compared. Figure 1. The design of this study 3. METHODS 3-1. Subjects The subjects of this study consisted of 42 university students (21 men and 21 women). Their average ages were years (range years, standard deviation 1.05). Subjects were divided into two groups; Group A and Group B at random. And they were numbered in each group (i.d. number). The two subjects who had the same number in each group were paired in order to communicate with each other by (table 1). By the way, the subjects were not informed who were their companions (anonymity) Experimental task Table1. Pairing of subjects Group A (n=21) i.d. 1 Pair1 2 Pair2 21 Pair21 Group B (n=21) i.d Subjects in Group A were presented the map of figure 2, subjects in Group B figure 3. Two kinds of the maps

3 were just the same except the position of black point. Our instruction was as follow; Now you were in the black point on your map. Your companion has the same map. His or her map has the black point where he or she is, but it dose not have the black point that indicates where you are. In short, your companion doesn t know that where you are, and you do not know that where he or she is. Therefore your task is that you inform your companion about where you are and ask your companions about where he or she is by . We designed this experimental task in order to interact actively with an anonymous companion. Figure2. Group A s map Figure3. Group B s map 3-3. Procedure Measurement of the affective traits We used the Japanese translation of DES-IV (Discrete Emotion Scale IV) by Izard et al. (1993). This questionnaire asks that in the daily life, how often do subjects feel about 12 kinds of the affects (Interest, Enjoyment, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Contempt, Fear, Guilt, Shame, Shyness, Hostility Inward), and they rate each items on a 5-point frequency scale (1=rarely or never, 2=hardly ever, 3=sometimes, 4=often, and 5=very often). This consists of totaled 36 items (each affects has 3 items). Table 2 shows the example of the DES-IV. Before the communications by , the subjects were asked to answer the questionnaire. Table 2. Example of content item of the DES-IV Affect 1. Interest 2. Enjoyment 3. Surprise Item Content In your daily life, how often do you Feel like what you re doing or watching is interesting Feel glad about something Feel like you feel when something unexpected happens Measurement of the affective interpretations While the subjects communicated by , whenever they received the from their companions, they asked to answer the questionnaire that questioned how they interpreted the companions affects on 12 kinds of the affects (all items of the DES-IV except Shyness, and Desire). The reason why we added Desire to this questionnaire is that the study on the classification of emotional expression in text by Inoue, Hujimaki and Isizaki (1997) found that the emotional expressions about desire were many. And because Shyness is not different from Shame very much in Japan, Shyness was excluded. This questionnaire consisted of totaled 12 items (each affects has 1 item). They rated 12 items on a 5-point true scale (1=not at all true, 2=hardly ever, 3=a little, 4=quite, and 5=very true). Table 3 shows the example of the questionnaire about the affective interpretations. Table 3. Example of content item of the questionnaire about the affective interpretations Affect Item Content What do you think that your companion feels, his or her writing this e- mail text

4 1. Interest 2. Enjoyment 3. Surprise Wrote this text interestingly Wrote this text joyfully Wrote this text surprisingly Measurement of the affective states During the communications by , whenever the subjects received the from their companions, subjects answered the questionnaire that asked them how they felt because of reading the as well as the measurement of the affective interpretations. This questionnaire also consisted of totaled 12 items (each affects has 1 item), and the subjects rated 12 items on a 5-point true scale. Here is Table 4 that shows the example of the questionnaire about the affective states. Table 4. Example of content item of the questionnaire about the affective states Affect Item Content How do you feel when you read this 4. Interest Feel so interested in this 5. Enjoyment Feel happy 6. Surprise Feel surprised 3-4. Software We used Outlook Express in order to communicate by because this software has already used by the most subjects before this experiment. 4. RESULTS 4-1. The factor analysis of the affective traits We have extracted three factors of affective traits from the subjects data by the factor analysis. Table5 shows the factor loadings after six varimax rotations. The bold characters in Table 5 indicate that the value of the factor loading is over 0.5, thus have strong correlations. As a consequence of the analysis, the affective traits are divided into three factors. Table 6 shows the three factors and the variables. Then we divided the subjects into the three groups according to the factor score. Each group s (factor1 s group, factor2 s group and factor3 s group) DES means and standard deviations are presented in Table 7. The bold characters in Table 7 indicate the values of the factor groups own variables. Table 5. Factor Loading (Varimax Rotation) Factor Variable Interest E E-02 Enjoyment E-02 Surprise E-02 Sadness E-02 Anger 4.588E Disgust Contempt 2.229E Fear Guilt E Shame Shyness E-02 Hostility Inward Table 6. Three factors of affective traits

5 Sadness Disgust Fear Guilt Shame Shyness Hostility Inward Interest Enjoyment Surprise Anger Contempt Table 7. Differential Emotions Scales (DES) means and standard deviations Factor 1 (n=14) Factor 2 (n=13) Factor 3 (n=15) Variable M SD M SD M SD Interest Enjoyment Surprise Sadness Anger Disgust Contempt Fear Shame Shyness Guilt Hostility Inward The correlation between affective interpretations and affective states We examined the relation between the affective interpretations and the affective states in each groups to examine the influence of the affective traits. This relationship was analyzed for each of the eleven of 12 affects (Interest, Enjoyment, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Contempt, Fear, Shame, Guilt and Hostility Inward). The results are shown on the following Table 8,9,10. All correlations in Table 8 are positive and significant (p<.01). The bold characters mean factor groups own affects. Table 8. Correlation between positive affective interpretations and affective states (interpretations states) Interest-Interest Interest-Enjoy Enjoy-Interest Enjoy-Enjoy Surprise-Surprise Surprise-Shame Interest-Interest Interest-Enjoy Enjoy-Interest Enjoy-Enjoy Surprise-Enjoy Surprise-Surprise Interest-Interest Interest-Enjoy Enjoy-Interest Enjoy-Enjoy Table 9. Correlation between negative affective interpretations and affective states (interpretations states) Fear-Fear Guilt-Contempt Guilt-Fear Guilt-Guilt Shame-Surprise Shame-Fear Shame-Guilt Shame-Self-Hostility Self-Hostility-Self-Hostility Sadness-Surprise Disgust-Sadness Disgust-Anger Disgust-Disgust Fear-Fear Self-Hostility-Contempt Self-Hostility-Guilt Self-Hostility-Self-Hostility Shame-Anger Shame-Sadness Shame-Disgust Fear-Anger Fear-Contempt Guilt-Sadness Guilt-Anger Guilt-Disgust Self-Hostility-Sadness Self-Hostility-Anger Self-Hostility-Disgust (interpretations states) Table 10. Correlation between affective (enemies) interpretations and affective states

6 Anger-Fear Contempt-Disgust Contempt-Contempt Anger-Surprise Anger-Anger Contempt-Contempt Anger-Fear Contempt-Sadness 5. DISCUSSION 5-1. The factor analysis of the affective traits The result of the factor analysis of the data of the affective traits obtained by the subjects extracted the three factors. Since factor 1 contained Sad, Disgust, Fear, Guilt, Shame, Shyness and Hostility Inward, it may be named Negative Affects. Factor 2 had Interest, Enjoyment and Surprise. We think that this factor may be called Positive Affects. And, the factor 3 consisted of Anger and Contempt. As well as the factor 1, this factor can be considered as negative affects, but we especially name this factor Affects of Enemies. We divided the subjects into the three groups according to the highest factor scores The correlation between the affective interpretations and the affective states According to Malatesta (1990), in the development stage we were under the stimulus that led to producing the specific affects, as the results, the affective traits have been formed through many experiences of the specific affects. Thus, while the subjects in the group of negative affects could have the experiences related to negative affects, the subjects in the group of positive affects could have the experiences related to positive affects. In another word, we thought that subjects in each group tended to have the characteristic affects against one stimulus. We gained an interesting result on the correlation between the affective interpretations and the affective states in each group. When the subjects in all groups have interpreted that their companions felt interest or enjoyment, they tended to produce the affect of interest or enjoyment. This result may mean that the stimulus of the positive affective interpretations on the companions led to the positive affective states on the subjects. But the affective interpretations of surprise that is comparatively positive are different among the groups of positive affects and negative affects. Subjects in the group of negative affects tended to lead to their affective states of shame, and the subjects in the group of positive affects tended to lead to enjoyment. In the negative affects interpretations on the companions, the subjects in each group were different. For example, if we focus on sadness in the affective interpretations, the subjects in the negative affects group tended to lead to their affective states of self-hostility, the subjects in the positive affects groups tended to lead to surprise, and the subjects in the group of affects of enemies tended to lead to anger or disgust. From the result of the correlation between the affective interpretations and the affective states, the positive affective stimulus may tend to cause the positive affective states. But, in negative affective interpretations we may be influenced by our own affective traits. 6. CONCLUSION We gained the data of the subjects affective traits. By the result of the factor analysis of the data, the subjects divided into the three groups group of Negative Affects, Positive Affects and Affects of Enemies. The subjects in each group were compared about the correlation between the affective interpretations and the states. From the result, we found that in communications by when the subjects interpreted their companions affective states as positive affective states, they might tend to cause positive affects. But, when they interpreted their companions affective states as negative affects, their affective states might be influenced by their affective traits. This may demonstrate that the affective traits influence on our affective states in communications (the solid lines in Figure 4). In the future work, we will examine the influence of affective states on a composition of and the influence on the companion (the dotted lines in the upper section of Figure 4), and the influence of the next affective interpretations (the bold dotted line in the lower section of Figure 4). Companion Composition of Affective traits

7 content perception Affective interpretations Affective states Figure 4. The influence on an affective aspect of the communication by ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are indebted to college students of Daito Bunka University for participation in this experiment as subjects. And, we express our sincere thanks to Mr. Paul Huang for assistance. REFERENCES [1] Beck, A.T., (1976), Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders, New York International Universities Press. [2] Blaney, P.H., (1986), Affect and memory, Psychological Bulletin, Vol.99, pp [3] Bower, G.H., (1981), Mood and memory, American Psychologist, vol.36, pp [4] Ekman, P., (1994) How are emotions distinguished from mood, temperament, and other related affective constructs, In Ekman, P., & Davidson, R.J. (Eds.), The nature of emotion, Oxford University Press, pp [5] Forgas, J.P., (1991), Emotion and social judgements, Oxford Pergamon Press. [6] Frijda, N.H., (1994) How are emotions distinguished from mood, temperament, and other related affective constructs, In Ekman, P., & Davidson, R.J. (Eds.), The nature of emotion, Oxford University Press, pp [7] Ito, M., (2000) Some issues on the mood-congruent effect Mood states and affective traits, Japanese Psychology review, Vol.43 (3), pp [8] Inoue, M., Hujimaki, M., Ishizaki, S., (1997) System for Analyzing Emotional Expression in text collection, classification, and analysis of Emotional Expressions, Technical Report of IEICE, TL (in Japan), Vol.96, pp [9] Izard, C.E., (1991) The psychology of emotions, New York Plenum Press. [10] Izard, C.E., Libero, D.Z., Putnam, P., & Haynes, O.M., (1993) Stability of Emotion Experiences and Their Relations to Traits of Personality, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol.64 (5), pp [11] Lazarus, R., (1994) How are emotions distinguished from mood, temperament, and other related affective constructs, In Ekman, P., & Davidson, R.J. (Eds.), The nature of emotion, Oxford University Press, pp [12] Malatesta, C.Z., (1990) The role of emotions in the development and organization of personality, In Thompson, R. (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation Socioemotional development, Lincoln University of Nebraska Press, pp [13] Marttunen, M., & Laurinen, L., (2001) Learning of argumentation skills in networked and face-to-face environments, Instructional Science, Vol.29, pp [14] Rusting, C.L., (1998), Personality, mood, and cognitive processing of Emotional information three conceptual frameworks, Psychological Bulletin, Vol.124, pp [15] Sakagami, Y., (1999) Individual Differences on Affects, Educational Psychology Research (in Japan), Vol.47, pp [16] Sannomiya, M., Kawaguchi A., (1999) Cognitive Characteristics of Face-to-Face and Computer Mediated Communication in Group Discussion An Examination from Three Dimensions, Educational Technology Research (in Japan), Vol.22, pp [17] ; Siegel,J., Dubrovsky, V., Kiesler, S., & Muguire, T.W., (1986), Group processes in computer-mediated communication, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol.37, pp [18] Velten, E., (1968) A laboratory task induction of mood states, Behavior Research and Therapy, Vol.6, pp [19] Watson, D., & Clark, L.A., (1994) How are emotions distinguished from mood, temperament, and other related affective constructs, In Ekman, P., & Davidson, R.J. (Eds.), The nature of emotion, Oxford University Press, pp