Understanding emotions
Timo Honkela
UIAH Media Lab
Fall 1999
Introduction
Traditional artificial intelligence research centered around "cold"
intellectual capabilities. Recently, the emotional aspect of human (or
animal) thinking and existence has raised more attention as a
relevant object of study. Consider, for instance, research of
affective computing at MIT Media Lab. They list the following research areas:
- research on human emotions
- sensing human affect signals
- recognizing patterns of affective expression
- understanding and modeling emotional experience
- synthesizing emotions in machines
- affective computing applications
- interfaces with affective computers
- affective communication
- affective wearable computers
Possibilities of modeling emotional development are considered.
One can ask, for instance, is it possible to create computational
models that would, at least to extent, illuminate phenomena
such as depression, mania and anxiety.
Preliminary timetable
The introductory
lectures present the basic ideas of affective computing and autonomous
agents with emotions.
Essay
Deadline of the essay for those who want to
take "Understanding emotions" separately
is November 30.
Themes in artificial intelligence and cognitive science
Timo Honkela, August 24, 1999