Benjamin:  We faced the same problem in a recent study focused on support/opposition to wolf recovery. Here (below) is a description of our methods, along with a citation to the article we published.

"Affect was operationalized by a standard elicitation measure developed by Slovic et al. (1991), wherein respondents are asked to list the first thought or image that comes to mind when they think about some object of interest. A lifetime of interacting on a daily basis provides people with images of the world, which according to Damasio (1994) can be broadly interpreted as sights, sounds, smells, visual representations of events, or words associated with objects or events. Attached to these images are positive or negative “somatic markers,” which can influence judgment and decision making (akin to trait-affect or integral affect). Here, respondents were asked for the first thought or image that comes to mind when they think about wolves. They were then asked to indicate how strong their negative or positive feelings are about wolves on a ten point scale ranging from “Very negative” (−5) to “Very positive” (5), with zero serving as “Neutral."

Slagle, K. M., Bruskotter, J. T., & Wilson, R. S. (2012). The Role of Affect in Public Support and Opposition to Wolf Management. Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 17(1), 44-57. 

Dear Benjamin,

You could simply ask them to rank their 3 favorite wildlife species

Dear Beatrice,

Thanks for your answer.

I have 4 species in my study and I want to have separate scores for each one, in order to study the influence of Affect on other variables like Perceived Risk and Benefits. So, a rank would not be useful for me. I need independent Affect scores for each species.

Are you talking about things like fear even when the animal is not around like many indian poor populations have an ingrained fear of tigers and elephants?

Fear is close to it, but I am specifically looking for Affect (The psychosomatic response one has to a stimulus that is based on past direct and indirect experience with the stimulus). 

One’s instinctual and emotive response to a species, is important for me.

so if I get you right you would be either talking about or observing autonomic responses such as sweating, shaking, i.e anxiety, avoidance.  I am trying to think of responses to either classical or operant conditioning.  Take a look at those to almost any stimulus.  I think of snakes as an example.  Most of the non verbal responses other than scared, shaky, anxious, heart racing, speechless, avoidance etc are physiological.  If so I would think they (any of them verbal or non verbal) would vary not only on the specie but on the individual and especially on the stimulus event.  So for example I have a small amount of reversion to snakes but I am not fearful and demonstrate non of those actions and emotions because my son raised them and I was around a large number of species and sizes of them.  I have had some interaction with the young of some big cats but my responses to them are very different than to their adult parent.   I love both and have only warm feelings in the abstract but am well aware of their size and ferocity so don't have any desire to get too close.  Well that isn't entirely true, I saw a special the other day about someone who worked with 36 lions etc that because of being hand raised could not be released into the wild.  He just rolled around with them like they were my very lovable doggies and I was horribly jealous because I would love to do the same.  And I absolutely adore elephants and just might interact with them despite the fact that I know they are not always docile.  So another variable might be locale of the interaction.  I am certain I would feel very differently if I were raised in the bush so to speak.  Especially if I did not already know that elephants have very very long memories and that it might take years for them to react but it doesn't mean being mistreated isn't remembered.  So I guess you also have to know how much the individual knows about the animal and its nature.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't think there are a whole lot of species who have an instinctual response.  Snakes, spiders, maybe the big cats, some sea characters like sharks.  But all of those are classically conditioned because of the survival of the species, namely us.  Same as fear of close places, darkness, height.  Otherwise I think you are getting into a territory of operant conditioning and there there are a whole lot of variables which could intervene to either exascerbate or limit any response.  Sorry to make this confused.  That is just what happens when I start thinking through a research paradigm

Dear Alexandra,

Thanks for your comprehensive answer.

I think I have to give more information. What I am looking for is a kind of instant feeling for a species based on the image that someone has in her mind of this species. The usual process that I found in related literature to measure this is to ask the respondents for the first thought or image that comes to mind when they think about the species (let say wolf), then to indicate how strong is their positive or negative feeling about the species, in a 5-point scale. 

My problem is that some of my respondents are old and illiterate and I will have problem using this technique to measure Affect with them. Thus, I need a more simple way to measure it. 

I wanna observe how this Affect or feeling for the species influence their perceived benefit or risk from the species.

You do not bother to ask your informants for any ratings on a likert scale. . Let them just decide the order of their liking  of the animal. Four wild animals in Finland would be e.g. Wolf, Fox, Moose and Snake. If my informants say that they prefer the animals in this order Moose, Fox, Wolf and Snake I would my self  give 40 points to Moose, 39 to fox, 20 to Wolf and 10 to Snake. If I want to know how fearful the animals are perceived I would go the same and then correlate likings and fears in my computation.Then when I have 200 answers it is easy to calculate whatever I want to. i am sure you find a way.

Correction: 40, 30, 20, 10 points

Thanks Beatrice. That sounds practical.

Investigating implicit associations using the IAT might be interesting. Michelle Verges has done some work on this: 

https://www.researchgate.net/researcher/58110054_Michelle_Verges

Benjamin:  We faced the same problem in a recent study focused on support/opposition to wolf recovery. Here (below) is a description of our methods, along with a citation to the article we published.

"Affect was operationalized by a standard elicitation measure developed by Slovic et al. (1991), wherein respondents are asked to list the first thought or image that comes to mind when they think about some object of interest. A lifetime of interacting on a daily basis provides people with images of the world, which according to Damasio (1994) can be broadly interpreted as sights, sounds, smells, visual representations of events, or words associated with objects or events. Attached to these images are positive or negative “somatic markers,” which can influence judgment and decision making (akin to trait-affect or integral affect). Here, respondents were asked for the first thought or image that comes to mind when they think about wolves. They were then asked to indicate how strong their negative or positive feelings are about wolves on a ten point scale ranging from “Very negative” (−5) to “Very positive” (5), with zero serving as “Neutral."

Slagle, K. M., Bruskotter, J. T., & Wilson, R. S. (2012). The Role of Affect in Public Support and Opposition to Wolf Management. Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 17(1), 44-57. 

Dear Jeremy,

Thanks for your answer. 

I have already seen your study and it's my best option so far. My concern is that even it would be problematic to ask some of my respondents to ask them about their first image or thought and then rank it. Some of them are rural, old and illiterate and I am wondering that it wouldn't be understandable for them to do so!

You can use animated faces to depict different affective states for people who cannot read.  Here's an example: http://www.surveypractice.org/index.php/SurveyPractice/article/view/60/html

Thanks.

That would definitely help.

Paul Ekman offers training modules in microexpression detection. One option might be for you to videotape subjects' responses to various animal stimuli (eg pictures, video clips, words). Then evaluate their microexpression reactions later. https://www.paulekman.com/paul-ekman/

Here is another interesting possibility:  http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/ff/bsy/tech/bildanalyse/shore-gesichtsdetektion.html