Dear AEPS Students,
Please, find below information regarding a seminar by Luca Cecchetti, combining emotional research and advanced statistical modeling. The seminar will take place on February 17th at 14 in in room U6-38. Feel free to participate if you are interested. The seminar is in English.
Best,
Giulio Costantini
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Luca Cecchetti, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
Emotional arcs and predictive minds
Emotions are dynamic processes characterized by complex temporal interdependencies. Indeed, certain states can amplify the intensity of specific emotions while suppressing others (Pe & Kuppens, 2012; Trampe et al., 2015). For instance, an instance of relief can influence subsequent occurrences of positive and negative affects. Remarkably, these emotional trajectories not only shape our daily lives and support predictive mental models but also influence narrative patterns, as demonstrated by the six basic emotional arcs identified in world literature (Reagan et al., 2016).
Building on these insights, I will present findings from a large dataset (n = 1,117) demonstrating that people develop mental models for forecasting future emotions by observing regularities in the stream of affect. These models are grounded in conceptual emotion knowledge, with predictions being more trusted at shorter timescales. Furthermore, temporal profiles of emotion transitions can be described along two primary dimensions: plausibility and change over time.
Expanding this analysis to the domain of art, I will show that the emotional arcs found in literature extend to cinematography. Data from participants (n = 116) who reported moment-by-moment emotional experiences while watching 60 full-length films reveal systematic fluctuations in valence. Additionally, analyses of self-reported affective states triggered by movies uncover latent profiles of emotion transitions specific to distinct genres. Lastly, by employing bipartite networks, I will illustrate clusters of movies with shared affective signatures, highlighting the broader implications of these findings.
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Monday February 17, 2025, 14.00
Aula U6-38, Building U6/Agorà
For any further information: Prof. Giulio Costantini