Workshops
During the Emotions 2023 conference, attendees will have the chance to participate in workshops on state-of-the-art methods in emotion science. Participation in the workshops is free of charge.
At Emotions 2023, attendees may join one of the following workshops offered by experts in the field.
Analyzing Affective Language: Psychological, Linguistic, and Computational approaches
Martijn Goudbeek & Emiel Krahmer
When humans produce language, they almost inevitable produce language that is affectively colored. For example, they include emotion terms (e.g., anger, joy, fear, guilt, or pride), use affectively laden nouns (friendship, war, torture, peace) or adjectives (beautiful, delicious, merry, depressed, aggressive, unreliabl). In addition, affective language may be more subtly colored by a larger proportion of first-person pronouns (signaling negative affect) or adjust their grammar to change focus (e.g., we lost vs they won). Finally, higher levels of analysis such as abstractness and politeness have also been shown to be influenced by the affective state of the speaker. The central aim of this workshop is to present and contrast the multitude of ways that can be used to analyze affective language, focusing on psychological, linguistic, and computational approaches. Affective language has, for instance, been analyzed using manual coding schemes (e.g., the Linguistic Category Model, manual annotation by lay participants or experts, automatically counting words based on (affective) category membership or more sophisticated computational approaches ranging from still relatively straightforward bag of words approaches to sentiment analysis based on deep neural networks. The advantages and disadvantages of these methods, the specific kind of information they provide, the extent they can complement each other, and what they can learn from each other will be a recurring theme in this workshop.
Psychophysiology in Emotion Research
Stefanie Duijndam & Nina Kupper
This workshop is hosted by Tilburg University’s behavioral physiology lab (GO-LAB) and will provide an overview of the design and data processing considerations particular to collecting peripheral psychophysiological measures. It is intended for those who are relatively new to psychophysiology but are interested in incorporating these methods into their (emotion (regulation)) research. The first part will be focused on collecting psychophysiological data in a laboratory setting. We will start with a presentation that reviews the current state of the art with respect to psychophysiology in emotion (regulation) research, and we will discuss the importance and benefit of psychophysiology. Then, after a short break, we will continue with how to measure psychophysiology in the context of emotion research. Using hands-on exercises, we will focus on what adding psychophysiology would mean for research design, what measures to use, and what to expect when analyzing the data. After the second break, we will focus on new ambulatory technologies. After the presentation, on novel technological opportunities for the study of emotions in ecological momentary assessment studies, attendees will share their ideas on and experiences with new technologies amongst each other in smaller groups. We will end with a discussion and wrap up. The goal is for participants to leave the workshop with the knowledge and resources to design and implement a study utilizing recordings of peripheral physiological data.
Designing your own experience sampling study to capture emotions in daily life
Eeske van Roekel, Dominique Maciejewski & Yasemin Erbas
A core feature of emotions is that they change over time, requiring that methods to study emotions capture these dynamics. A prominent way for the assessment of emotions is the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). In ESM, individuals rate their emotions multiple times per day across days, weeks or months using smartphone apps. ESM has gained immense popularity to study emotions in daily life, due to recent technological advances and because it has many advantages over more traditional survey methods (e.g., high ecological validity and low recall bias). Yet, due to the many decisions that need to be made regarding the design of an ESM study (e.g., study duration, sampling scheme, assessment frequency), it can be difficult to decide on the best fitting design for your research question. Additionally, although ESM is growing in popularity, there has been little systematic evaluation of psychometric properties of self-report instruments to measure emotions in daily life. Based on state-of-the-art research, the current workshop provides an overview of the decisions that need to be made when designing an ESM study, including a discussion on how to best measure emotions in daily life.
Analyzing experience sampling data to study emotions in daily life
Joran Jongerling
The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) leads to very rich data on emotions, with multiple measurements per day per person, and across days, weeks or months. This can provide unparalleled insight into emotional processes as they unfold over time, but getting this insight requires analyzing large amounts of data with less common and sometimes complex analysis techniques. This workshop will provide participants with hands-on experience, guidance, and tips & tricks for the analysis of intensive longitudinal data. We will practice with data-preparation and wrangling, analyzing data using multilevel regression and (vector) autoregressive models, and interpretation of output, using the open software R. In addition, we will practice testing for measurement invariance with ESM data, which is a crucial psychometric quality check needed for valid results and conclusions in ESM research. A computer with internet connection is required for this workshop.
Using m-Path as a tool for tracking emotions in the wild
Merijn Mestdagh & Stijn Verdonck
In this workshop, we introduce m-Path (www.m-Path.io), an online platform developed at KU Leuven in which we provide practitioners and researchers with a unique insight into a client's emotional daily life through mobile technology. By focusing on the specific interpretation and contextualization of someone's emotions, m-Path aims to provide a personalized and nuanced picture of someone's mental health status. By repeatedly surveying clients via a mobile application during their daily routine, researchers and clinicians learn which triggers exacerbate or improve a person's emotions, how they are interrelated or how clients typically attempt to cope with them. Further, m-Path can be used therapeutically to alter someone’s emotions via everyday interventions. Using concrete cases, we will discuss how m-Path can be used to answer different research questions in daily life, paying attention to both study design and data interpretation in our online dashboard. A smartphone + computer with internet connection is required for this workshop.
Emotions in Relationships
Laura Sels & Martine Verhees
Emotions are inherently social. They are continuously elicited, altered and regulated in the presence of (and through) others. How emotions operate in close relationships, such as those between parents and children or romantic partners is especially of interest, because these are the interactions in which emotions are elicited and shared most often and most intensely. Fortunately, research that investigates the interplay between emotions and relationships has seen a rapid increase in the past years because of a growing awareness of the importance of the interpersonal perspective on emotions and the availability of appropriate research technologies, methods, and statistical techniques.
The goal of this workshop is to introduce you to this wonderous field, and/or getting to know fellow relationship researchers. We will start with the question: why would you bother with emotions in relationships? Besides reviewing its importance, we will also discuss the rise and evolution of the field. Next, several relationship researchers will shortly introduce their research, demonstrating the diversity of this domain, and providing a glance into its state-of-the art. After a break, we will continue on a methodological note, discussing ways to measure emotions in relationships and challenges, also including data-analytical issues. We will end with a short group discussion about the field and future directions. Our aim is to have participants leave the workshop inspired to delve into this field (even more).
Space is limited for the workshops. Enrolling for a workshop will be possible through the conference registration portal that will open in May 2023.