The structure of surprise intensity

Two experiments investigated the multicomponent theory of emotion intensity proposed by Frijda, Ortony, Sonnemans, and Clore (1992) in the case of sur prise and compared it with the more traditional "feeling element" approach to emotion intensity. In both experiments the participants performed a choi ce reaction time task for a certain number of trials. In the last trial the y were surprised by an unexpected change of appearance of the stimuli. In E xperiment 1 the change concerned either an action-relevant or an action-irr elevant, affectively neutral stimulus. In Experiment 2 the change concerned either an affectively positive or an affectively negative stimulus. Respon se delay in the surprise trial served as the index of the interruption of o ngoing processes caused by surprise. Immediately after the surprise trial t he participants completed a surprise intensity questionnaire that was an ad aptation of the general emotion intensity questionnaire used by Sonnemans a nd Frijda (1994). In contrast to the findings of Sonnemans and Frijda (1994 ), the present findings were consistently better in line with the tradition al feeling element approach to emotion intensity than with the multicompone nt theory. Possible reasons for the failure to support the multicomponent t heory of emotion intensify for the case of surprise are considered.