Researchers typically use the “big five” traits as a standard way to describe personality. Evaluation of personality is generally conducted using self-report questionnaires that require participants to respond to a large number of test items. To minimize the burden on participants, this paper proposes an alternative method of estimating multidimensional personality traits from only a single word. We constructed a system that can convert a sound-symbolic word that intuitively expresses personality traits into information expressed by 50 personality-related adjective pairs. This (...) system can obtain information equivalent to the adjective scales using only a single word instead of asking many direct questions. To achieve this, we focused on SSWs in Japanese that have the association between linguistic sounds and meanings and express diverse and complex aspects of personality traits. We evaluated the prediction accuracy of the system and found that the multiple correlation coefficients for 48 personality-related adjective pairs exceeded 0.75, indicating that the model could explain more than half of the variations in the data. In addition, we conducted an evaluation experiment in which participants rated the appropriateness of the system output using a seven-point scale. The average score for 50 personality-related adjective pairs was 1.25. Thus, we believe that this system can contribute to the field of personality computing, particularly in terms of personality evaluation and communication. (shrink)

Tertiary qualities have been studied primarily by Gestalt psychologists. My aim in this article is to revisit the theoretical assumptions regarding tertiary qualities. I start from the Galilean distinction of the qualities of experience, the Lockean subdivision of qualities, the subjectivist definition in aesthetics and the theoretical contribution of Gestalt theory, to show the theoretical value of ‘tertiary qualities’ in the current context of experimental psychological research. I conclude that tertiary qualities are a crucial keyword for an experimental psychology based (...) on the primacy of perception. Such a perspective is in favour of a neo-Gestalt Experimental Phenomenology. (shrink)

In physiognomy, sensory, perceptual, and affective connotations are suggested by an object. For example, a mountain, in addition to being literally big, may also seem “quiet, looming, and threatening.” The capacity of physiognomically endowed but meaningless stimuli (like taketa and maluma) to transfer these meanings to similarly unfamiliar but neutral stimuli was examined on 15 perceptual, affective, and sensory rating scales (N = 118). The meanings of the two neutral stimuli were influenced in 26 instances (vs. 8 cases in which (...) the neutral stimuli followed one other); most changes were affective and sensory rather than perceptual; and the shifts in meanings were noncongruent—taketa’s “aggressiveness,” for example, led to a “peaceful” rating of the two neutral shapes. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)