The Method:
A computer is loaded with visual libraries of symbol collections, consisting of conceptual drawings, simple comics, inkblots, diagrams, schematics, cariacatures, etc. Each library will consist of seven hundred images, and all of these images are portrayed in black and white.
A
subject will summon a visual library to manifest, which will, according to a program processing the symbol library, begin to sequentially flash the images across the CRT at a fairly fast pace, approximately one image per second. No interaction with the library will be possible until the entire library has been viewed at least seven times.
The Interaction Device: A keyboard consisting of eight large, square buttons, each representing a basic emotion and arranged into a circle, defined by three categories: Negative Emotional Response, Positive Emotional Response and Ambivalence. Within the Negative Response, there will be four of the eight buttons which will represent Fear, Anger, Sadness and Disgust. Within the Positive Response, three buttons designate Happiness, Surprise and Interest. The eighth button will represent Ambivalence.
A peripheral device next to the keyboard is a pulley drawbar force measurer on which the subject pulls to indicate the intensity of the emotion felt.
These devices are to be used for every image flashed on the screen. If a response is not indicated with immediacy, another image replaces it, and so on. Of course, the system running the image library will have slowed down the process, allowing a few seconds per image to indicate emotional response and intensity. Combinations of emotional responses are allowed, excepting Ambivalence.
The point of all of this is to ascribe a particular feeling and an intensity to an image, which is recorded as a constituent for later creation of the Associative Spectrum.
The Associative Spectrum:
1) A new library, composed of numerous other image libraries, is categorized according to emotion, and listed in sequence of intensity.
2) The subject will elect to use either a subtractive or additive color-mixing filter.
3) The subject attributes one perceptible band of color (ROYGBIV) to each emotionally-invested symbol, according to the subject's psychology and/or whimsy. The leftover emotional response will indicate black, gray and white, all according to intensity and dependent upon the color-mixing filters chosen.
4) The library then graphically displays the spectrum of symbolic imagery, illustrating an associative palette that is finely attuned with the author. Each symbol can be displayed with the attributed gradient of color, as a method of keeping track of place within this vast catalog of emotionally-invested symbols. However, it is important to note that the coloration of the symbol is simply an indicator of placement within the spectrum, and that the image is to be considered in terms of black and white.