EmoMadrid: An emotional pictures database for affect research

Emotional scenes are, along with facial expressions, the most employed stimuli in Affective Sciences. However, as compared to facial expressions, available emotional scene databases are scarce and, in some cases, obsolete and overused. This paper describes EmoMadrid (http://www.psicologiauam.es/CEACO/EmoMadrid.htm), an open access database currently consisting of 813 emotional pictures. Valence and Arousal of each of these pictures were assessed by an average sample of 146 volunteers per session, who evaluated an average of 155 pictures each. Total participants up to the present is 768. EmoMadrid includes information, not provided in other databases, on low order visual parameters such as spatial frequency, luminosity, and chromatic complexity. These parameters are of crucial interest, since they have been revealed to interact with the affective content of pictures. EmoMadrid shows a robust short and long term reliability (under and over 5 years, respectively) and has already been employed in 15 Human Neuroscience and Behavior published studies, despite it has only been described in its web page.