Research on Human Emotions

Research psychologists have been studying emotion for a long time; in fact it is one of the oldest areas of research. Several classic theories of emotion exist:

James-Lange Theory

According to this theory, actions precede emotions and the brain interprets said actions as emotions. A situation occurs and the brain interprets the situation, causing a characteristic physiological response. This may include any or all of the following: perspiration, heart rate elevation, facial and gestural expression. These reflexive responses occur before the person is aware that he is experiencing an emotion; only when the brain cognitively assesses the physiology is it labeled as an "emotion".

Cannon-Bard Theory

Cannon and Bard opposed the James-Lange theory by stating that the emotion is felt first, and then actions follow from cognitive appraisal. In their view, the thalamus and amygdala play a central role; interpreting an emotion-provoking situation and simultaneously sending signals to the ANS
(autonomic nervous system) and to the cerebral cortex which interprets the situation cognitively.

Schachter-Singer Theory

Schachter and Singer agreed with James and Lange -- that the experience of emotions arises from the cognitive labeling of physiological sensation. However, they also believed that this was not enough to explain the more subtle differences in emotion self-perception, i.e. the difference between anger and fear. Thus, they proposed that an individual will gain information from the immediate situation (ex: a danger is nearby) and use it to qualitatively label the sensation.

There are many more theories than these, with new ones being refined almost every day. Current thinking is that emotion involves a dynamic state that consists of both cognitive and physical events.

We do not conduct basic studies about human emotion in our lab, but many of the things we build offer an opportunity to learn more about human emotion. Some projects that fall into this category are listed below.

Research projects in human emotion

Affective Jewelry and Accessories: Wearable jewelry and other clothing designs with embedded sensors for sensing physiological changes associated with emotions.
Affective Social Quotient (ASQ): This project aims to help autistic kids learn about social-emotional cues. It consists of short digital videos that embody one of several emotions (currently happy, sad, surprise, and anger) and a set of physical "dolls" linked by infrared to the system. The system knows which dolls correspond to which clips, so that the child can explore emotional situations by picking up dolls with certain emotions, or the system can prompt the child to pick up dolls that go with certain clips.
Affective Tutor—the Learning Companion: We are interested in constructing an agent that senses affective states like boredom, anxiety, and engagement, and adjusts its response to the user in accord with the user's state. This would be aimed at learning situations where the agent acts as a kind of mentor, occasionally supporting the user in his or her otherwise self-propelled exploration. It also provides an opportunity for learning about the role of human emotions expressed during a learning situation.
Computer Response to User Frustration: A human-computer interaction agent was designed and built to support users in their ability to recover from negative emotional states, particularly frustration. The agent uses social-affective feedback strategies, including a kind of "artificial empathy." Its effectiveness was evaluated against two control conditions in a 72-subject study. Behavioral results showed the agent was significantly more effective than the control conditions in helping relieve frustration levels.
Digital Processing of Affective Signals: Analysis of physiological signals obtained during an experiment yields methods to enable computers to better recognize a number of intentionally-expressed emotions.
Detecting Driver Stress: We outfitted a car with cameras and physiological sensors and used real-time signals to recognize driver stress as represented by road conditions, questionnaire responses, and third-party observations.
Emotion Recognition in an Actor: A study in pattern recognition correlation of biosignals from an actor's body during the actor's self-induced emotional states. Includes a new online-emotion recognition algorithm.
The Galvactivator: A wearable device which maps your skin conductivity to a glowing red LED. Set the baseline, and then use this as a device to learn about and communicate your body's response.
Frustration Detection: Results of using HMM's to try to detect episodes of likely frustration in a human-computer interaction, using physiological signals of skin conductivity and blood-volume pressure.
Frustration Experiment Design: A psychological experiment designed to elicit a "frustration response", and to synchronize computer events with multiple channels of physiological data Used to collect data for the Frustration Detection study, above.
Human emotional needs, and their relationship to HCI: An inquiry into how computers should be designed to be able to interact with users who are emotional and social by nature was begun with an inquiry into emotional and social needs that humans have. We have begun to describe both applications and future research to address these needs.
Orpheus, the affective CD player: A digital music delivery system that plays music based on your current mood, and your listening preferences -- whether, for example, you want to hear sad music when you are sad, or music to change your mood.
SmartSHELL: If a system is smart enough to know when a person is going to be at a "burned out" performance level, can it help motivate the person?
TransForm: A dynamic graphical interface designed to work with the Conductor's Jacket to communicate emotion visually to the audience.
User Modeling of Physiology. Normal physiological processes such as breathing, sneezing, coughing, etc., must be factored into the user model, since such signals can easily drown out physiological cues for affective states. We have several efforts that involve understanding user baselines.

Want to email us? For answers to frequently asked questions and for our email address, please visit the FAQ and email page. Thanks!