105 Emotions in affective human-computer interaction

Emotions play a critical role in motivation and influence cognitive processing, both the fundamental processes (attention, perception, memory) and higher-level processes (learning, decision-making, planning). Emotions also play a crucial role in social interactions, mediating attachment, communicating behavioral intent, and facilitating the development of the empathic loop and interpersonal trust, and are also intricately linked with language. Linguistic stimuli can trigger powerful emotional states and emotions influence both the content and prosody of utterances, as well as the interpretation of linguistic stimuli. As computer systems proliferate into most aspects of our lives, it is increasingly important to consider the effects and roles of emotions in human-computer interaction (HCI). This is especially important in contexts where computers and computerized agents are transitioning from tools to collaborators, assistants and coaches. This chapter provides an overview of the cross-disciplinary area of Affective Computing (AC), and outlines how AC enables the development of affective HCI. The chapter then elaborates in greater detail the area of computational affective modeling, and argues that deeper models of emotion generation and emotion effects are necessary to support more complex human-machine interaction, both non-verbal and verbal. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the promises and challenges in affective HCI.