The Emotional Movie Database (EMDB): An Expanded Toolkit for Emotion Research

Emotion-eliciting film clips play a critical role in psychological, neuroscientific, and affective computing research by providing standardized stimuli for studying emotional responses. The Emotional Movie Database (EMDB) was initially developed to offer silent film clips for emotion research, but its limited stimulus diversity necessitated an update. This study expands the EMDB by introducing four new emotional categories—social exclusion, unpleasant landscapes, extreme sports, and social inclusion—along with an enhanced set of neutral clips. Two assessment experiments were conducted to validate the new film clips. Experiment 1 (lab-based; n = 117) examined social exclusion, social inclusion, unpleasant landscapes, and extreme sports, while Experiment 2 (online; n = 128) focused on social exclusion, social inclusion, and newly recorded neutral clips. Participants rated the clips on valence, arousal, and dominance using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) and reported the emotions experienced. Findings indicated that social exclusion clips elicited negative valence ( M = 2.16, SD = 1.07) and moderate-to-high arousal ( M = 5.97, SD = 2.06), while social inclusion clips had positive valence ( M = 7.17, SD = 0.92) and lower arousal ( M = 4.68, SD = 1.72). Unpleasant landscapes were rated negatively in valence ( M = 2.77, SD = 0.99) with low arousal ( M = 4.53, SD = 2.01), and extreme sports clips were positively valenced ( M = 6.25, SD = 1.12) with intermediate arousal ( M = 5.34, SD = 1.95). Newly recorded neutral clips consistently produced neutral valence ( M = 5.11, SD = 0.42) and low arousal ( M = 2.31, SD = 1.36), confirming their effectiveness as control stimuli.