Scientists move closer to making computers that understand our emotions
JYVÄSKYLÄ, Finland — Imagine if your computer could sense your emotions as you worked — feeling your joy at completing a task, your boredom during repetitive data entry, or your frustration when an error message pops up for the tenth time. This might sound like science fiction, but researchers are bringing this vision closer to reality by developing advanced computational models that can predict and simulate human emotions during computer interactions.
At the forefront of this effort is a team of Finnish scientists who have created a model that integrates two key psychological theories – appraisal theory and reinforcement learning. Appraisal theory suggests that our emotions arise from our cognitive evaluations of events. For example, we might feel happy if we appraise an event as conducive to achieving our goals. Reinforcement learning, on the other hand, is a framework for understanding how rewards and punishments shape behavior over time.
The researchers combined these two approaches into a unified computational model that can predict emotional responses as a person interacts with a computer to complete tasks. The model essentially puts itself in the user’s shoes, simulating the series of actions, outcomes, and cognitive appraisals that ultimately give rise to emotions like happiness, boredom, or frustration.
