The emoji scale: A facial scale for the 21st century
Abstract
Emojis have grown in popularity as a method for digital communication. Recently, there has been interest in the connection between emojis and emotional response to consumer products. Research has been conducted linking emojis and the emotional response from food stimuli in adults via avenues such as Twitter, and in children. An online study was conducted to assess the application of an emoji-based pictorial facial scale with childFrren ages 8–11 (grades 3rd, 4th, and 5th). Two hundred and fourteen participants were asked to evaluate their liking and emotional response using the Peryam and Kroll (P&K) scale (super good/super bad) and pictorial emoji scale, respectively, for both food and non-food experiences. Scores from each grade level were not statistically different. The responses from both scales had similar mean scores and distribution patterns for all experiences with no incidence of bias toward any one emoji. These results support the suitability of the emoji scale for measuring emotional response using verbal stimuli names with children ages 8–11 in the United States and indicate it is a reasonable alternative to the P&K scale for this demographic.
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The survey was composed in Catalan and designed to be easily comprehensible for children, featuring emojis corresponding to each level of the Likert scale.
“The survey was composed in Catalan and designed to be easily comprehensible for children, featuring emojis corresponding to each level of the Likert scale (Swaney-Stueve et al., 2018).”
From Fostering students’ motivation and self-efficacy in science, technology, engineering, and design through design thinking and making in project-based learning: a gender-perspective study in primary education (2025) · cites this paper as Swaney-Stueve et al., 2018
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References 25 · Cited by 88
- Authors
- Swaney-Stueve, M., Jepsen, T., & Deubler, G.
- Affiliations
- Kansas State University (US)
- ORCID
- Deubler, Grace
- Venue
- Food Quality and Preference
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-09
- Volume
- 68
- Pages
- 183-190
- ISSN
- 0950-3293 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2792395002
- Cited by
- 88
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 5
- FWCI
- 9.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Food Quality and Preference (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Sensory Analysis and Statistical Methods
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Digital Communication and Language
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Keywords
- emojis, emotional responses, children, food liking, digital communication
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