Cynthia Whissell, Ph.D. (Purdue)
Room: A230; Extension: 4251; Email: cwhissell@laurentian.ca
Research Areas:
The Emotional Meanings of Language
I have developed the Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL) in an attempt to quantify emotion in language. Volunteers viewed many thousands of words and rated them in terms of their Pleasantness, Activation, and Imagery (concreteness). The DAL is embedded in a computer program which is used to score language samples on the basis of these three dimensions. The DAL has been applied to studies of fiction (e.g., Frankenstein, David Copperfield), of poetry (e.g., the work of Frost, Blake), drama (e.g., Shakespeare’s tragedies and comedies), advertisements, group discussions, and lyrics (e.g., the Beatles). It has also been used in the selection of words for memory research.
In a more innovative line of research, I have established that most of the basic sounds of the English language have emotional connotations attached to them. The DAL was used to validate these connotations. For example, the l sound has positive and gentle connotations while r and g sounds have harsher ones. Emotional sound connotations (phonoemotionality) have been studied as they appear in poetry, lyrics, and personal names. Results indicate that personal names vary in emotionality in tune with major social events (e.g., war, depression), and also that there are stable sex differences in the emotional connotations of names.
PUBLICATIONS (Since 1996):
Books/Books Edited
Whissell, C.M. (2009). Finding the emotion in names. Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing.
Whissell, C.M. (2008). A psychological investigation of the use of Shakespeare=s emotional language: The case of his Roman tragedies. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
Chapters in Academic Books
Tremblay, L., Emptage, E., Whissell, C., Chebbi, B., & Bouchard, S.
(2010). "Visual Motor Assessment Tests and Assistive Technologies; Description and Application in Post-Secondary Educational Achievement of Adults with Learning Disabilities. In “Achievement Tests: Types, Interpretations and Uses.” Lucas E. Madsen, Ed. Nova Science Publishers Inc. ISBN 978-1-61122-056-8
Whissell, C. (2006). The Psalms of the Old Testament as mood induction procedures. In S.D. Ambrose (Ed.), Religion and psychology. New York, NY: Nova Science.
Whissell, C. (2003). Sex differences in personality and emotion. In C.R. Ember & M. Ember (Eds.), Encyclopedia of sex and gender differences. New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers.
Articles (in refereed journals)
Whissell, C. (2012). Could we have seen it coming? And should we watch for it? International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. In Press.
Whissell, C. (2012). The trend towards more attractive and informative titles: American Psychologist 1946-2010. Psychological Reports, 110, 1-18.
Whissell, C. (2011). “To those who feel rather than to those who think.” Sound and emotion in Poe’s poetry. International Journal of English and Literature, July, 2011 (open access).
Whissell, C. (2011). Sound and emotion in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 113, 257-267.
Whissell, C. (2011). Explaining inconsistencies in Shakespeare’s character Henry V on the basis of the emotional undertones of his speeches. Psychological Reports, 108, 843-855.
Whissell, C. (2011) Challenging an authorial attribution: vocabulary and emotion in a translation of Goethe’s Faust attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Psychological Reports, 108, 358-366.
Whissell, C. (2011) Challenging an authorial attribution: vocabulary and emotion in a translation of Goethe’s Faust attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Psychological Reports, 108, 358-366.
Whissell, C. (2010) Poet interrupted: differences in the emotionality and imagery of Byron’s poetry associated with his turbulent mid-career years in England. Psychological Reports, 107, 321-328.
Whissell, C. (2010). “Leading with words? Emotion and style in the language of U.S. President Clinton’s communications: Psychology of Language and Communication, 14, 169-179.
Whissell, C. (2009). Emotion and the humors: Scoring and classifying major characters from Shakespeare’s comedies on the basis of their language. Psychological Reports, 106, 1-20.
Whissell, C. (2009). Using the revised Dictionary of Affect in Language to quantify the emotional undertones of samples of natural language. Psychological Reports, 105, 1-13.
Whissell, C. (2008). Emotional fluctuations in Bob Dylan's lyrics measured by the Dictionary of Affect accompany events and phases in his life. Psychological Reports, 102, 469-483.
Whissell, C. (2008). A comparison of two lists providing emotional norms for English words (ANEW and the DAL). Psychological Reports, 102, 597-600.
Whissell, C. (2008). The distinct emotional flavour of Gnostic writings from the early Christian era. Psychological Reports, 102, 213-234.
Whissell, C. (2007). Word emotionality and the structure of the Old Testament book of Ruth. Psychological Reports, 101, 1011-1015.
Whissell, C. (2007). Quantifying genre: An operational definition of tragedy and comedy based on Shakespeare=s plays. Psychological Reports, 101, 177-192.
Whissell, C. (2006). Serial publication and the emotional associations of words in Dickens= David Copperfield. Psychological Reports, 99, 751-761.
Whissell, C. (2006). The flow of emotion through Beowulf. Psychological Reports, 99, 835-850.
Whissell, C. (2006). Historical and socioeconomic predictors of the emotional associations of sounds in common names. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 103, 451-456.
Whissell, C. (2006). Emotion in the sounds of pets' names. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 102, 121-124.
Whissell, C. (2006). Geographical and political predictors of emotion in the sounds of favorite baby names. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 102, 105-108.
Whissell, C. (2006). Comparison of the books of the New Testament (English Translation) in terms of emotion and word use. Psychological Reports, 98, 57-64.
Whissell, C. (2005). ATo those who feel rather than to those who think ...:@ Emotion and sound in Poe=s poetry. Empirical Studies of the Arts (Accepted for publication).
Whissell, C. (2004). Poetic emotion and poetic style: The 100 poems most frequently included in anthologies and the work of Emily Dickinson. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 22, 55-75.
Whissell, C. (2004). Emotion and style in an English translation of the Quran. Psychological Reports, 94, 523-544.
Whissell, C. (2004). Using computer-scored measures of emotion and style to discriminate among disputed and undisputed Pauline and non-Pauline epistles. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 98, 1117-1125.
Whissell, C. (2004). AThe sound must seem an echo to the sense@: Pope=s use of sound to convey meaning in his translation of Homer=s Iliad. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 98, 859-864.
Whissell, C. (2004). Titles of articles published in the journal of Psychological Reports: Changes in language, emotion, and imagery over time. Psychological Reports, 94, 807-813.
Whissell, C. (2003). What difference does it make? Implications of the size of the difference between the means of two groups. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 97, 716-722.
Whissell, C. (2003). The emotional symbolism of two English E-sounds: /i/ as in Acheap@ and /I/ as in Achip.@ Perceptual and Motor Skills, 96, 149-165.
Whissell, C. (2003). Reader=s opinions of romantic poetry and consistent with emotional measures based on the Dictionary of Affect. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 96, 990-992.
Whissell, C. (2003). Pronounceability: A measure of language samples based on children=s mastery of the phonemes employed in them. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 96, 748-754.
Whissell, C. (2002). The U.S. Declaration of Independence: Emotion, style, and authorship. 49th Parallel, 9, Spring 2002. http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/49thparallel .
Sigelman, L., & Whissell, C. (2002). Projecting presidential personas on the radio: Addendum on the Bushes. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 32, 572-576.
Sigelman, L., & Whissell, C. (2002). AThe Great Communicator@ and AThe Great Talker@ on the radio: Projecting presidential personas. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 32, 137-146.
Whissell, C. (2002). Emotion conveyed by sound in the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 20, 137-155.
Whissell, C. (2001). Cues to referent gender in randomly constructed names. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 93, 856-858.
Whissell, C., & Sigelman, C. (2001). The times and the man as predictors of emotion and style in the inaugural addresses of U.S. presidents. Computers and the Humanities, 35, 255-272.
Whissell, C. (2001). Sound and emotion in given names. Names: A Journal of Onomastics, 49, 97-120.
Whissell, C. (2001). The emotional quality of William Blake=s poems: A quantitative comparison of Songs of Innocence to Sons of Experience. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 92, 459-467.
Whissell, C. (2000). Phonoemotional profiling: A description of the emotional flavour of English texts and transcripts on the basis of the phonemes employed in them. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 91, 617-648.
Whissell, C. (2000). Emotion and closure in the sound expressiveness of quatrains from Fitzgerald=s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 18(2), 135-149.
Whissell, R., & Whissell, C. (2000). The emotional importance of key: Do Beatles= songs written in different keys convey different emotional tones. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 91, 973-980.
Whissell, C. (1999). ATis more than what is called mobility@: Structure and development towards understanding in Byron=s Don Juan. Romanticism on the Net, 13 February (refereed journal).
Whissell, C.M. (1999). Holding emotional and linguistic rulers up to the poetry of Robert Frost. Psychological Reports, 85, 751-758.
Whissell, C. (1999). Evaluating predictions about emotion and imagery in literature: Mary Shelley=s Frankenstein as an example. TEXT Technology, 8, 59-73.
Whissell, C. (1999). Phonosymbolism and the emotional nature of sounds: Evidence of the preferential use of particular phonemes in texts of differing emotional tone. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 89, 19-48.
Whissell, C. (1999). Linguistic complexity of abstracts in highly cited journals. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 88, 76-86.
Whissell, C. (1999). Are phonemes mastered early more likely to appear in highly imaged as opposed to abstract nouns? A test of predictions based on Jakobson=s theory. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 87, 1208-1210.
Whissell, C. (1998). Linguistic, emotional, and content analyses of sexually explicit scenes in popular fiction. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 7, 147-159.
Whissell, C. (1998). Objective analysis of text: II. Using an emotional compass to describe the emotional tone of situation comedies. Psychological Reports, 82, 643-646.
Whissell, C. (1998). A parsimonious technique for the analysis of word-use patterns in English texts and transcripts. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 86, 595-613.
Rovinelli, L., & Whissell, C. (1998). Emotion and style in 30-second television advertisements targeted at men, women, boys, and girls. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 86, 1048-1050.
Whissell, C.M. (1998). The formula behind women's romantic formula fiction. Arachne, 5, 89-119.
Whissell, C., & McCall, L. (1997). Pleasantness, activation, and gender differences in advertising. Psychological Reports, 81, 355-367.
Henderson, J., & Whissell, C. (1997). Changes in women's emotions as a function of emotion valence self-determined category of premenstrual distress, and day in menstrual cycle. Psychological Reports, 80, 1272-1274.
Whissell, C. (1997). Content, style, and emotional tone of texts in introductory psychology. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 84, 115-125.
Whissell, C.M. (1996). Predicting the size and direction of sex differences in measures of emotion and personality. Genetic Social and General Psychology Monographs, 122, 253-284.
Whissell, C.M. (1996). Traditional and emotional stylometric analysis of the songs of Beatles: Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Computers and the Humanities, 30, 257-265.
Whissell, C.M. (1996). Mate selection in popular women's fiction. Human Nature, 7, 427-447.
Whissell, C. (1996). The modal study of premenstrual syndrome of tension: A content analysis of 315 recent abstracts along global dimensions. Psychological Reports, 79, 1360-1362.
Other scholarly activity representing a contribution to the discipline:
Correspondence courses (preparation) - PSYC 1105 (Introductory Psychology); PSYC 2505 (Statistics); PSYC 2706 (Emotion); PSYC 2707 (Motivation); PSYC 3206 (Testing); PSYC 3207 (Tests and Measurements); PSYC 2905 (Sensation and Perception)
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
Language phonology and emotion. The psycholinguistics of literature.
Examples:
. A comparison of English translations of the Bible
. Sound in Shakespeare's sonnets
. Titles of articles in major psychological journals – changes across time
MASTER THESIS SUPERVISION
Previous to 2010: MA Supervision approximately 30, Committee Membership, approximately 40.
2011-12 PhD Supervision: 3
PhD Committee Membership: 3
MA Supervision: 4
MA Committee Membership: 6
ACADEMIC/PROFESSIONAL AWARDS, PRIZES
2005 Laurentian University Teaching Excellence Award