The Effect Of Emoji On The Emotional Perception Of Text

With the rapid development of society,people are increasingly relying on social software for online communication.Using various chat applications,people can communicate with different groups of people online.However,unlike traditional face-to-face communication,online communication lacks necessary nonverbal cues,which leads to misunderstandings when interpreting others’ messages or perceiving their emotions.Emojis,as a commonly used online communication tool,to some extent,compensate for this deficiency.In specific situations,emojis are usually combined with text materials to convey corresponding emotions.However,we are still unclear about how emojis of different valences affect the perception of text materials.Therefore,this study specifically explores the influence of positive and negative valence emojis on the emotional perception of corresponding texts.To achieve the research objectives,we conducted experiments in three steps.Firstly,we used two questionnaire surveys to select pre-experimental text materials that meet emotional intensity.Through further t-tests,a total of eight positive text materials and eight negative text materials were selected,and in the further pre-experimental questionnaire survey,the previously screened text materials were subdivided into low and high intensity by t-tests.Then,through the previous studies,positive and negative valence emojis used in the experiment were determined.Combine the selected text materials in the pre-experiment to form the survey materials used in the formal Experiment 1 and Experiment 2.And by simulating the way of conversation in We Chat chat scenes,corresponding chat screenshots were composed to set up an online chat scene for communication with friends.Experiment 1 was conducted through a questionnaire survey method.The survey materials that the subjects will read in the experiment were combined with the pre-experimentally selected materials and corresponding valence emojis.The experimental design was a within-subjects three-factor experiment,with independent variables of text valence(positive,negative),presence of emojis(yes,no),and text material intensity(low,high),and dependent variables of the subjects’ 9-point scale emotional ratings of the experimental materials.The results of the repeated measures ANOVA showed that positive and negative valence emojis can enhance the emotional perception of text materials.Specifically,the emotional perception of the text materials with positive or negative emojis was significantly higher than that without positive or negative emojis.Under the conditions of low and high-intensity text materials,corresponding valence emojis respectively enhanced the emotional perception of the subjects on low and high-intensity text materials.Further repeated measures ANOVA and simple effect analysis showed that the negative emoji most significantly improved the emotional perception of low-intensity negative texts.Experiment 2 was conducted through a questionnaire survey method.The survey materials that the subjects will read in the experiment were combined with the pre-experimentally selected materials and corresponding valence emojis.Experiment 2 was designed as a within-subjects three-factor experiment,with independent variables of the presence or absence of positive valence emojis(yes,no),the presence or absence of negative valence emojis(yes,no),and the text sequence(positive text first,negative text last;negative text first,positive text last),and dependent variables of the subjects’ 9-point scale emotional ratings of the experimental materials.The results of the repeated measures ANOVA showed that the appearance of positive emojis significantly improved the emotional perception of both text sequences.Specifically,when the negative text was last,the appearance of positive emojis had a greater effect on the emotional ratings of the text.The appearance of negative emojis significantly reduced the emotional perception of both text sequences.Specifically,when the negative text was last,the appearance of negative emojis had a greater effect on the emotional ratings of the text.Furthermore,the interaction of the presence or absence of positive and negative valence emojis showed that the appearance of negative emojis weakened the positive effect of positive emojis on the emotional ratings of the text.This study shows that emojis are very important nonverbal cues in online communication.In comparison with face-to-face communication,online communication lacks many nonverbal cues.Emojis,as a commonly used expression method in online communication,supplement some of the nonverbal cues in online communication,enabling people to more accurately identify the emotions that the sender wants to convey.Moreover,the specific results show that emojis of different emotional valences can enhance the perception of corresponding emotional texts,indicating that in actual online social scenarios,people can further enhance the emotions they want to express by combining corresponding valence emojis,enabling the recipient to better understand the emotions they want to express.