Valence and arousal ratings for 11,310 simplified Chinese words

Abstract

This study reports valence and arousal ratings for 11,310 simplified Chinese words, including 9774 two-character words, 949 three-character words, and 587 four-character words. These affective ratings are validated through comparisons with prior ratings of smaller word samples. All but four words included in this study are from the MEgastudy of Lexical Decision in Simplified CHinese (MELD-SCH) database. As age-of-acquisition ratings and concreteness ratings have recently become available for large portions of words in the MELD-SCH, the affective ratings not only further enrich the database as a valuable research tool, but also allow us to gain insight into a range of psycholinguistic constructs based on normative ratings of a large set of Chinese words. Cross-language comparisons of the valence ratings between Chinese words and English words appear to indicate cultural and sociopolitical influences reflected in affect representations.