Scientists have identified 27 distinct types of emotions, challenging a long-held assumption that our feelings fall within the universal categories of happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear and disgust. <br/><br/>Using novel statistical models to analyse the responses of more than 800 men and women to over 2,000 emotionally evocative video clips, researchers at University of California, Berkeley in the US created a multidimensional, interactive map to show how emotion are connected.<br/>'<br/>Moreover, in contrast to the notion that each emotional state is an island, the study found that there are smooth gradients of emotion between, say, awe and peacefulness, horror and sadness, and amusement and adoration. The study has been published in the journal PNAS.