MIT Media Lab oratory Perceptual Computing Section Technical Rep ort No Revised Novemb er Submitted for publication Aective Computing R W Picard MIT Media Lab oratory Perceptual Computing Ames St Cambridge MA picardmediamitedu httpwwwmediamitedupicard Abstract ground in the scientic study of emotions I will suggest com putational mo dels for aect recognition and will describ e new Recent neurological studies indicate that the role of application s of aective computing to areas such as computer emotion in human cognition is essential emotions are assisted learning p erceptual information retrieval creative arts not a luxury Instead emotions play a critical role and entertainment and human health Aective computing is in rational decisionmaki ng in p erception in human a critical new research area in need of exploration one which interaction and in human intelligen ce These facts can signicantl y contribute to advances in emotion and cog combined with abilities computers are acquiring in nition theory while greatly improving the interaction b etween expressing and recognizing aect op en new areas for humans and machines research This pap er denes key issues in aective I should state some things that I do not intend aective computing computing that relates to arises from computing to address Iamnot prop osing the pursuit of or delib erately inuences emotions New mo dels are computerized cingulotomi es or even the business of buildin g suggested for computer recognition of human emo emotional computers in the negative sense of the word emo tion and b oth theoretical and practical applicatio ns tional which implies a loss of desirable rationalityHowever I are describ ed for learning humancomputer interac will discuss creative and unpredictable computers tion p erceptual information retrieval creativearts This pap er will also not review the massive literature on emo and entertainment human health and machine in tion and cognition theory I have only included references where telligence Signicant p otential advances in emotion needed to supp ort claims related to aective computing and cognition theory hinge on the development of af I will also not prop ose answers to the dicult and intriguing fective computing esp ecially in the form of wearable questions what are emotions what causes them and computers This pap er establishes challenges and fu whydowehave them It is my hop e and exp ectation that ture directions for this emerging eld research in aective computing by using computers to recog nize and synthesize emotions can assist scientists in getting closer to the answers of these imp ortant questions Fear Emotion and Science This pap er is organized as follows In the remainder of this section I briey describ e two recentdiscoveries to supp ort the Nothing in life is to b e feared It is only to b e under imp ortance of emotion in cognition rst in p erception and sto o d Marie Curie second in rational decision making I also present a scenario based on the role of emotions in learning as an example of Emotions have a stigma in science they are b elieved to b e aective computing Section outlines the key issues to devel inherently nonscientic Scientic principles are derived from oping computers that can recognize human emotion and express rational thought logical arguments testable hyp otheses and emotion Section p oses human aect recognition as a pattern rep eatable exp eriments There is ro om alongside science for recognition problem and prop oses mo dels for its solution this noninterfering emotions such as those involved in curiosity section may b e skipp ed by those who are not engaged in the de frustration and the pleasure of discovery In fact muchsci tails of building these systems Computers that have emotion entic research funded by defense budgets has b een essentially present new moral and ethical dilemmas which are broached in prompted by fear Nonetheless emotions are generally regarded Sect Computers which can recognize and express aect lead as wreaking havo c on reasoning Although emotions p ervade to a myriad of new applications I have suggested over fty science their role has b een marginalized in this pap er with most app earing in Sect This research Why bring emotion or aect into any of the delib erate to ols agenda and the contributions of this pap er are briey summa of science Moreover shouldnt emotion b e completely avoided rized in Sect when considering prop erties to asso ciate with computers After all computers control signicant parts of our lives the phone Songs vs laws system the sto ckmarket nuclear p ower plants airplane ights Let me write the songs of a nation I dont care who and more Who wants a computer to b e able to feel angry at writes its laws Andrew Fletcher them To feel contempt for any living thing In this pap er I will set forth key issues in what I call af Emotion pulls the levers of our lives whether it is love that fective computing computing that relates to arises from or delib erately inuences emotions I will elab orate further on this The making of small wounds in the ridge of the limbic sys denition and its implication s b elow tem known as the cingulate gyrus a surgical pro cedure to aid The topic of emotion is a dicult one to treat scientically severely depressed patients but that is precisely what needs to b e done In this pap er I For a list of twelve op en questions in the theory of emotion will illustrate ways in which aective computing can break new see Lazarus leads to forgiveness or curiosity that drives scientic inquiry metab olism An overall increase of brain metab olism o ccurred As humans our b ehavior is greatly inuenced by the songs but it was not in the higher cortex where it was exp ected in our hearts Rehabilitati on counselors pastors parents and Cytowics studies p oint to a corresp onding increase in ac p olitician s know that it is not laws that exert the greatest inu tivity in the limbic system a collection of parts of the brain ence on p eople but rather the drumb eat to which they march which lie predominately b etween the brain stem and the two For example the death p enalty has not lowered the murder rate hemispheres of the cortex The limbic system has tradition in the states where it has b een instituted as law However mur ally b een assumed to play a less inuential role in p erception der rates are signicantl y inuenced by culture or the cultural than the cortex which lies ab ove it The limbic system is tune Consider the following scenario the seat of emotion memory and attention Its activity during Imagine that your col league keeps you waiting for a highly synesthesia indicates that the limbic system plays a signicant important engagement to which you thought you wereboth com role in p erception mitted You wait with reason and with increasing puzzlement In a recent treatise on emotion theory Izard describ es by his unusual tardiness You think of promises his delay is emotion as b oth a motivating and guiding force in p erception causing you to break except for the promise you made to wait and attention One do es not need a blo o dow scan or theory for him Perhaps you swear o futurepromises like these He of emotion however to recognize that emotion greatly inu is completely unreachable you think what you wil l say to him ences p erception We are all familiar with emotions inuence about his irresponsibility But you stil l wait because you gave on p erception from observing this inuence in other p eople him your word You wait with growing impatience and frus inuences that have received names such as the fearinduced tration Maybe you waver between wondering is he ok and tunnel vision or the joyinduced seeing through rosecolored feeling so irritated that you say under your breath Il l kil l him glasses when he gets here The limbiccortic tangle When he nally shows after you have nearly given up your last promise of waiting howdoyou resp ond Whether you Note that my distinction b etween cortical and limbic func greet him with rage or relief do esnt his expression aect your tions is for emphasis only in practice normal limbic and corti resp onse Your resp onse changes dramatically if he arrives in cal brain areas do not op erate in isolation but are functionally considerately carefree or with wo eful countenance Amere intertwined Not only have the two areas b een articiall y sepa expression of aect can p owerfully inuence subsequentbehav rated in most studies but there is a tendency among scientists ior to attribute higher functionality to the cortex whichisphysi In saying that emotions or songs pull the levers of our cally higher and much easier to prob e lives I am not suggesting that laws are unimp ortant or even However discoveries such as that of the limbic role in the that wedoaway with the lawbased articial intelligen ce AI higher function of p erception imply that a high or dominating systems given to computers even though the latter are widely function is not necessarily cortical Along with the synesthe acknowledged to b e brittle and unintelli gent Rather I am say sia ndings mentioned ab ove the research of LeDoux another ing that laws and rules are not necessarily the most imp ortant neuroscientist suggests that the hipp o campus long considered part in human b ehavior and intelligence In fact laws and rules the key structure of the limbic system is signicantl y involved do not even play a solo in such cognitive tasks as p erception in registering and making sense of p erceptual patterns LeDoux or decisionmakin g according to