Visually mediated valence effects in dialogue: an explorative study

This is an exploratory study investigating potential effects of emotional valence in images and their influence on conversation in the presence of the images. We used latent-semantic analysis to generalize valence ratings of Swedish words to a corpus of spoken conversations. Each utterance in the conversation was given a valence rating, which represented how emotionally positive or emotionally negative the utterance was. We found no effects that indicate that valenced images have an effect on conversations. However, we find that valenced images in general, and positive images in particular, were considered more helpful by the participants who engaged in the conversations. Additionally, we find no results that interlocutors align over time in their use of valenced language.