waif

What am I feeling?

Write something — a message you have not sent, a note to yourself, anything. You get the feeling, what you are doing with it, and every number behind it.

or try

The three axes, why the name takes two steps, what the published ratings can and cannot do, and what happens when you correct a reading.

Seven answers, three jobs

They do not all do the same thing, and only two of them choose the word.

Family, then shade	The word. Nothing else picks it
Valence, arousal, control	The sentence, and the three meters
Intent	The end of that sentence
Is this writing at all	A gate — below 0.50 nothing is scored

The axes used to pick the word too. The scores further down are why they no longer do.

Three axes

Valence (pleasant ↔ unpleasant), arousal (shut down ↔ keyed up) and control (powerless ↔ in charge), measured separately because they vary separately. Each level is anchored to words whose ratings were measured, so as activated as rage or panic is a claim you can check where very aroused is not.

The name comes in two steps

Ask for one of sixty emotion words and the model splits its own vote: annoyed, irritated and frustrated are one feeling in three wordings, so the probability divides between them and confidence collapses for a reason that has nothing to do with the text. Families do not have that problem — anger, fear and sadness are genuinely alternatives to each other. So the first call picks the family, and the second picks the shade from that family alone.

What you are doing is a separate question again: a choice over eight speech acts, which are alternatives to one another in the way emotion words are not.

The ratings are reference, not the mechanism

Every word below carries published human ratings of valence, arousal and dominance. Using those numbers to pick the word was tried, and scored on 24 texts against a list of acceptable answers for each:

Nearest word in the whole vocabulary, by published valence/arousal/dominance	3/24
Nearest word within a family, by rank on the axis that separates that family	9/24
Nearest word within a family, by distance in published valence/arousal/dominance	12/24
Family chosen by the model, then the shade chosen by the model	22/24

They fail for three reasons. Dominance correlates with valence at +0.87 across these words, so the third number is nearly a copy of the first. Negative emotions occupy a very small part of the space, so the nearest one is close to arbitrary. And a word rated on its own is not the same measurement as writing read in context — people rate the word gratitude far more activated than a grateful message reads. So the ratings anchor the rubric and show where each word sits. The model does the naming.

What happens when you correct it

Every reading asks whether it fits. Saying no sends the numbers above and the word you would have used — never what you wrote, which a correction does not need and which is stored nowhere.

That does not retrain anything. The model is hosted and has no learning surface, so a correction changes nothing by itself. What the corrections build is the thing the table above is made of: a labelled set of real readings, growing, with an accept rate attached.

Which is where the loop closes. A shade corrected the same way twenty times is not bad luck, it is one line of the rubric describing the wrong thing — and that line can be rewritten and scored again the same afternoon, against the same probe set. The learning is real; it just happens in the wording rather than in the weights.

What it cannot do

Sixty-two words and no more, and no coordinate separates feelings that differ only by what caused them. Where the shade does not separate it names the two words it is between; where even the family is unsettled, it says so.

Word	Valence	Arousal	Dominance	n	sd
Anger — Something is wrong and someone is at fault
annoyanceA small thing, quickly over	2.95	4.10	3.45	20	1.23
irritationGrating, repeated, wearing	3.38	5.50	4.35	21	1.47
frustrationBlocked from something they are trying to do	2.45	5.94	3.27	20	1.39
resentmentAn old grievance still carried	3.00	5.19	4.05	19	1.89
angerSquarely angry at someone or something	2.50	5.93	5.14	20	1.36
outrageAngry at something that should not be allowed	2.97	6.52	4.80	39	1.44
ragePast words; wants to break something	2.50	6.62	4.17	18	1.95
hatredSettled, lasting ill will	2.38	5.22	4.00	42	1.78
Fear — Something bad may be coming
dreadA bad thing is coming and cannot be avoided	3.00	4.50	3.62	19	1.89
anxietyKeyed up about something that might go wrong	2.38	4.78	3.39	21	1.66
worryTurning a possible bad outcome over and over	2.10	6.33	3.17	21	1.26
fearAfraid of something specific and present	2.93	6.14	3.32	42	1.79
terrorOverwhelmed by fear	2.75	6.35	2.95	20	1.97
panicFear that has taken over action	2.56	6.40	2.65	39	1.55
Sadness — Something is lost or gone wrong and cannot be undone
disappointmentHoped for something and did not get it	2.79	4.90	4.08	19	1.87
sadnessPlainly sad	2.40	2.81	3.84	20	1.10
lonelinessSad at being unaccompanied	2.35	4.09	3.61	43	1.85
sorrowDeep, settled sadness	2.95	3.55	3.80	21	1.72
griefSad at a loss that cannot be undone	2.33	4.95	3.26	39	1.51
miserySustained wretchedness	2.20	4.82	3.80	102	1.59
despairSad and out of hope	3.61	4.64	4.05	23	2.08
Shame — The fault is their own
regretWishes they had done otherwise	3.41	4.90	5.63	22	2.17
guiltDid something wrong to someone	2.29	4.48	4.35	21	1.35
embarrassmentExposed in front of others, socially	2.72	5.45	2.92	18	1.60
shameSomething wrong with them, not just the act	2.62	5.40	5.21	21	2.11
humiliationDegraded by someone else	2.27	5.43	3.26	22	1.42
Aversion — Repelled by something, or resenting what someone else has
envyWants what someone else has	3.05	4.35	3.16	20	1.85
jealousyAfraid of losing something to someone else	2.58	5.45	3.89	106	1.37
disgustRepelled by something	3.32	5.00	4.84	19	2.40
Joy — Something good has happened or is happening
amusementFinds it funny	7.00	4.82	6.59	19	1.56
pridePleased with something they or theirs achieved	6.50	5.54	5.83	18	2.28
optimismExpects things to go well	7.21	4.95	6.90	39	2.09
excitementKeyed-up eagerness	7.62	6.21	6.33	42	1.38
delightSharp, immediate pleasure	8.21	5.02	7.29	19	0.92
joyDeep, full happiness	8.21	5.55	7.00	19	1.18
Affection — Warmth towards a particular person
sympathyFeels for someone's difficulty	6.57	3.08	5.90	21	2.11
tendernessGentle, protective warmth	6.89	3.10	5.08	18	1.64
nostalgiaWarmth for something past	6.65	4.38	5.36	20	2.08
gratitudeThankful to someone for something done	6.67	5.09	6.71	21	2.15
compassionMoved to care by someone's suffering	7.90	4.50	6.36	21	1.14
affectionFond of someone	7.89	5.64	6.60	19	1.05
loveLoves them	8.00	5.36	5.92	37	1.39
Calm — Settled and at ease, or a weight lifted
contentmentSatisfied with how things are	6.62	4.60	6.58	21	2.27
satisfactionPleased a thing is done or right	7.18	3.18	6.44	22	1.87
reliefA weight has just lifted	6.63	4.42	5.64	19	1.54
confidenceSure of themselves	6.71	4.04	6.50	21	1.76
peaceUntroubled	7.75	4.65	7.17	40	1.50
serenityDeeply still	7.75	2.95	5.97	20	1.65
calmNot agitated	6.89	1.67	7.44	18	2.00
Flat — No feeling has much hold
indifferenceDoes not care either way	4.35	3.61	5.64	20	1.73
apathyCannot summon caring	3.68	3.80	5.15	19	1.70
boredomNothing here holds interest	2.77	2.58	5.04	22	1.69
emptinessFeels hollowed out	3.26	3.18	4.10	23	2.28
fatigueWorn down	3.64	3.26	4.05	22	1.87
exhaustionNothing left at all	3.21	4.52	4.29	19	2.18
Looking ahead — Turned towards something not yet here
anticipationWaiting for something coming	5.26	5.39	5.53	19	1.66
curiosityWants to find out	6.37	5.90	6.21	19	1.42
desireWants something	7.05	6.20	6.07	19	1.75
hopeWants it and it might happen	7.48	5.29	6.78	21	1.69
determinationHas decided and will see it through	7.58	5.52	7.06	19	1.35
Startled — Caught off guard by something unexpected
surpriseCaught off guard	7.44	6.57	5.17	18	1.58
aweStruck by something larger than them	6.85	3.83	5.85	20	1.79

Ratings on a 1–9 scale, from Warriner, Kuperman & Brysbaert (2013), Norms of valence, arousal, and dominance for 13,915 English lemmas, Behavior Research Methods 45, 1191-1207. n is how many people rated the word and sd the spread of their valence scores, which is rarely small.