Sentiments and Cognition Interdependence: An Exploratory Study of Sentiment Analysis and Image Schema

Abstract

Cognition is mostly seen as the motivation towards certain emotive decisions and/or actions. Thus, it is only restricted to evaluation and appraisal in the studies of emotions. However, the long-term emotions, i.e. sentiments, are hardly represented in relation to cognitive aspects. The aim of this study is to provide an in-depth understanding of cognition and affection through an adaptation of Johnson's (1987) and Kimmel's (2005) image schema theory, and Plutchik's (1980, 1988) sentiment analysis in quotes of Goodreads. The data selected for this study consists of three themes of Goodreads: life, death, and inspiration. From each theme, six hundred quotes were selected and analyzed. The study focuses on the correlation between sentiments and image schemas detecting aspects of control and/or responsibility of the self and the other. Therefore, the third tool of analysis is used to identify sentiments, i.e. lexico-syntactic analysis which assists in the identification of the self/other control and responsibility through the agent/doer, experiencer knowledge. A mixed methodology, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative analyses, is adopted highlighting relationships between variables. The analysis is highlighted through the framework of Johnson's image schema theory and Plutchik's theories (Theory of Emotions and Theory of Cognition-Emotion Relations). The statistical analyses show that there is a significant relationship between cognition and emotions except with LOCOMOTION and SPACE. This might be due to the nature of those schemas where there are several subschemas in addition to their linear nature. This study adds texture to human knowledge as it detects different aspects of human experiences. Furthermore, the amount of manual data analyzed contributes to the fields of cognitive semantics and psychology, especially, image schema modeling.