Mental models accurately predict emotion transitions. Three studies found strong associations between people's actual emotional transitions and their mental models of others' emotional transitions. A fourth study used Markov modeling over 60 emotional states to show people have unique dynamic knowledge about emotional transitions beyond static evaluations. A fifth study replicated these findings using data from over 2 million online user reports. The results suggest people rely on their own experience of emotional transitions to predict others' emotions through accurate mental models.

1. Mental models accurately
predict emotion transitions
Mark A. Thornton & Diana I. Tamir (2017)
PNAS
Shushi Namba

2. Introduction

3. Social mind
• People are remarkably good at understanding
each other, and people can also predict others’
emotion and behavior.
Why ?

4. Proposed mechanism
• Emotion transition have some regularity.
• High probability: awe (畏敬) → gratitude (感謝)
• Low probability: awe (畏敬) → contempt (軽蔑)
• Then, people learned these rules based on own
experiences, and might be able to gain accurate
mental models of others’ emotion transition.

5. Studies in this article
• Study 1-3: the actual rates of transitions between
emotions using existing experience-sampling
datasets (own experienced and mental models for
other people).
• Study 4: Markov modeling over a rich sampling
over a rich sampling of 60 states + conceptual
building blocks of mental models.
• Study 5: Tyranny of the majority (数の暴力: 200万)
+ emphasis on dynamics

6. Method

7. Cut it! (too complicated
Please check the source article.

8. Simple Explanation 1
11:30, Happy 14:30, Relaxed
Look this transition!
(Experience-sampled)

9. Simple Explanation 2
Look this transition!
(Mental model)

10. Result

11. Study 1: N = 40, every 3h/d/2weeks

12. Study 1: Mental model

13. Study 1

14. Study 2: N = 40, every 3h/d/2weeks

15. Study 2: Mental model

16. Study 2

17. Study 3: N = 10,723, random timing

18. Study 3: Mental model

19. Study 3

20. There is the strong associations
NRMSE = normalized root mean square
error in simple regressions with ratings

21. Conceptual building: Study 4
• Each dimension evaluated in previous studies.
• These index explained highly similar transition in
specific valence (e.g., negative: angry ⇒ sad)
High auto-correlation!

22. Particular valence is strong

23. Dynamic? Static?
• The above relationships for each dimensional
evaluation is Static information and association.
⇒ controlling for the four conceptual dimensions.
⇒ unique knowledge about emotional dynamics:
residual accuracy (mean partial ρ =0.10) + statistical
significant [95% bootstrap CI = (0.09, 0.11)], with a
large standardized effect size (d = 1.51).

24. Study 5
• Almost results were replicated using the 2
million data from the Experience Project
(www.experience project.com).

25. Discussion

26. The current results
• The mental model seems to be common as
own emotional transition.
• The correlation between own emotional
transition and mental model remains
meaningful with controlling static structure
using some dimensional evaluations.

27. Limitation
• Participants in this study did not make
predictions in a naturalistic context.

28. Conclusion
• We used mental model for other persons based
on our emotional transitions.
That is, our emotion predicted others’ emotion!

29. End

30. End
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