Pointaffect

Pointaffect is a term that has appeared in limited scholarly and industry discussions to denote a localized or pointwise treatment of affective data. There is no single, widely accepted definition, and the term is not standardized in peer-reviewed literature.

In affective computing and computational social science, pointaffect may refer to a function or mapping that assigns an affect score to individual data points in a sequence, such as time-stamped sensor readings, facial-expression frames, or textual units. This enables analysis of affect dynamics at temporal or spatial granularity. In user experience research or marketing analytics, pointaffect might denote the affect value attached to a specific item or interaction, supporting point-by-point sentiment tracking. In some mathematical or data-analytic usages, the term could be used informally to describe a pointwise measure of emotional content derived from a model that treats affect as a scalar field over time or space.

Because the term is not standardized, interpretations vary across disciplines and datasets. Comparisons across studies require explicit definitions of the scoring scheme, the data points considered, and the model used to derive affect values. Pointaffect is often discussed alongside related concepts such as affective computing, sentiment analysis, and time-series analysis, but remains distinct in its lack of formal specification.

See also: affect, emotion recognition, sentiment analysis, valence-arousal model, time-series analysis, pointwise. Pointaffect remains a loosely defined term whose usage depends on context and data.