Analyses of the discomforts aroused by stimulus sentences

Abstract

This study attempted to analyze discomforts in relation to sensory modality and subject's gender. Twenty students were asked to give free description of the experiences they imagined with twenty-seven sentences depicting the situations of a distinct stimulation of four sensory modalities except for gustation. They were also required to rate on the five-point scale their judgments of easiness for reproducing the corresponding situation, easiness for arousing discomfort, and intensity of the discomfort, respectively.Discomforts were divided into and affect: The former is the affect induced directly by sensory event, as exampled byI fear darkness itself to a stimulus sentence Make a night journey alone, whilst the latter is the affect aroused through cognitive processing, as exampled byI get a fright by thinking I may be assaulted. Also, discomforts judged as indicating the potentiality for coping behaviour were checked to count their frequency. These judgments were made by experimenters.The results obtained were as follows: 1) There found no significant difference among modalities and genders, in easiness for recollecting the situation and easiness for arousing the discomfort. 2 ) In all of the four modalities, sensation-based affect was aroused more frequently than cognition-based one. More closely, sensation-based affect was significantly dominant in tactual and olfactory modalities, whilst frequency of cognition-based one was relatively high in both visual and auditory modalities. Females gave larger number of reports on cognition-based affect than males did. 3) Intensity of sensation-based affect showed main effects of two variables and their interaction, whilst that of cognition-based affect showed the modality effect alone. Intensity of sensation-based affect was higher in audition and olfactions, while that of cognition-based affect was the highest in vision. 4) Potentiality for coping behaviour was higher for sensation-based affect than for cognition-based one. Intensity was higher for the discomfort showing the potentiality than for the discomfort showing no sign of it.