One thing that sounds like it should be something rather obvious, yet somewhat elusive to find discussion on, is how the concept of affect fits into feelings and emotion. Upon explaining affect as best I can, a response is often something along the lines of ‘So, is it like feelings or emotion?’ Upon which my answer would be ‘Yes, kind of, but not quite’. After finding this article by Eric Shouse (2005) however, distinguishing between the three has now become exponentially easier to do. Hopefully I can do the topic some justice when I explain it below, alongside an example in relation to games.
Shouse (2005) describes this distinction in that ‘feelings are personal and biographical, emotions are social, and affects are prepersonal’. Therefore, whenever a player experiences any kind of event or interaction within a game, one does not simply feel or emote in response to it, but rather goes through a myriad of layers of reactions in order to arrive at a particular response. Not to be confused with feeling or emotion, affect is not a personal feeling, but rather a transition between a variety of experiential states. Such encounters occur between two bodies – namely that of the affected (such as the player) and the affected (such as the game).
As a feeling is influenced by previous experiences, each person has their own interpretations and labels of the same events. When a player receives intensities from a game, the objective implications are simply a collection of imagery and sounds. Perhaps a flash of colour streaks across the screen in front of them; perhaps they ears receive aural cues of sword clashes. The sound of metal clashing implies danger. The player’s ears may perk up, more alert to future intensities. Their pulse may quicken in the midst of this engagement. For the player, these feelings drawn from audiovisual cues are a result of their biography so far, with additional influence by previous and individual sensations. Without the player’s feelings to interpret these intensities that are projected from the game, the affect becomes inconsequential, and is instead left behind amongst the multitude of sensations that continuously impact the body.
Emotion is the outwards expression of such feelings. Unlike feelings however, we can choose to manipulate the way we emote, whether genuinely or not. It is up to the individual to determine their emotion, and whether to truly broadcast their true internal states, or whether to alter it in order to meet social expectations. For example, the player of a horror game may unintentionally influence their emotion given the social context they are playing the game in. When experiencing the horror game alone, they may find themselves unstimulated and hence somewhat placid. When playing the same game with peers however, social expectations may influence players to exhibit similar emotions to those around them.
Therefore affect acts as the underlying component of this relationship – it is the intensity that is felt first and foremost, while feeling and emotion are driven off the qualification of these particular intensities. Feeling does not fit neatly into either intensity or qualification, but perhaps exists at some point in between.
As I obtain a better grasp on each concept of affect, the rabbit hole continues to grow and grow. Look forward to seeing the next blog post before I delve in too deep!