Qualitative and Quantitative Causes of the Experience of Affect
type: CreativeWork
description: This dissertation used a story-appreciation methodology, namely, a surprise discourse-structure paradigm, to investigate factors that determine the quality and the intensity of affect. Undergraduate subjects read stories which ended with information that varied in degree of surprisingness, valence potential, and resolution of comprehender's text-understanding problems. Ratings of hedonic tone (e.g., unpleasantness/pleasantness), cognitive activity (i.e., interestingness), perceived resolvedness of text-understanding problems (e.g., not resolved/resolved), and perceived peripheral arousal (i.e., tenseness/excitement) were used to examine the effects of the three independent factors on the quality and intensity of the experience of affect.
abstract: This dissertation used a story-appreciation methodology, namely, a surprise discourse-structure paradigm, to investigate factors that determine the quality and the intensity of affect. Undergraduate subjects read stories which ended with information that varied in degree of surprisingness, valence potential, and resolution of comprehender's text-understanding problems. Ratings of hedonic tone (e.g., unpleasantness/pleasantness), cognitive activity (i.e., interestingness), perceived resolvedness of text-understanding problems (e.g., not resolved/resolved), and perceived peripheral arousal (i.e., tenseness/excitement) were used to examine the effects of the three independent factors on the quality and intensity of the experience of affect.
author: Iran-Nejad, Asghar
keywords: Education, Educational Psychology
date published: 2014-12-15T18:49:23Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:25:59Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/68850