Abstract
A scaling method utilizing affective adjectives is widely used to conduct universal assessment. These adjectives, which are commonly applied to usability tests of products, are composed of various affective adjectives ranging from simple to complex. However, subjective responses make it difficult to utilize objective measures especially for complex affective adjectives. Additionally, various affective adjectives have semantic associations to assess complex affective adjectives. Therefore, this study was intended to apply the concept of spreading activation theory which examines the semantic distance between words extracted from information regarding long-term memory. This study investigated the association with simple and complex affective adjectives using subjective questionnaires and SAT(Spreading Activation Test) on earphones. The results of this study showed that there can be a quantitative evaluation of the affective assessment by using spreading activation theory. In addition, this method can facilitate the assessment of complex affection adjectives.
