Positive Affect Spike
A brief, unexpected moment of positive affect during an interaction that the user reports as releasing energy or lifting engagement. Distinguished from sustained mood by its short, punctate character.
Operational Definition
EVENT. One occurrence would be coded when a user emits a discrete positive-affect signal (e.g. 'oh nice!', exclamation of delight) tied to a specific AI turn, lasting a single turn rather than a sustained passage. The affect-signal turn is the unit counted.
Measurement Schema
Proposed measurement protocol (not yet empirically validated): In-the-moment self-report: users tap a single-press affect marker when they feel a positive jolt, timestamped against the eliciting turn; optionally validated against rater-coded positive-affect tokens (agreement would be assessed via Cohen's kappa). Could be reported as positive-jolt events per session.