The A ective Tigger
a study on the construction of an emotionally
reactivetoy
by
Dana Kirsch
B S CognitiveScience
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences Scho ol of Architecture and
Planning in partial ful llmentof the requirements for the degree of Master of
Science in Media Technology at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
June
c
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved
Signature of Author
Program in Media Arts and Sciences
May th
Certi ed by
Rosalind W Picard
Asso ciate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
Program in Media Arts and Sciences
Accepted by
Stephen A Benton
Chair Departmental Committee on Graduate Students Program in Media Arts and Sciences
The A ective Tigger
a study on the construction of an emotionally
reactivetoy
Dana Kirsch
Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences Scho ol of Architecture and
Planning on May th in partial ful llmentofthe requirements for the degree
of Master of Science in Media Technology
Abstract
The A ectiveTigger is a toythatresp onds to the user or playmate in a natural
and emotive manner Sp eci cally the A ectiveTigger recognizes and reacts to the
emotion the child is exhibiting For example when the child is happily playing with
the A ective Tigger she mightmoveand hold him in a manner that expresses this
happiness she mightbounce him along the o or or hug and kiss him The A ective
Tigger senses this physical interaction for example he mightrecognize that the child
is b ouncing him and outwardly expresses his own happiness in turn In this manner
the A ective Tigger is b oth mimicking the mo o d expressed bythechild and reacting
to a b ehavior exhibited bythechild namely b ouncing him The A ectiveTiggerwas
evaluated by assessing the appropriateness of his resp onses to the child In twelve
playsessions children were invited into the MIT Media Lab oratory to playwiththe
A ectiveTigger The results from these trials illustrated that three year olds are
just b eginning to recognize emotions in others four year olds are in the pro cess of
discovering an awareness of other and veyear old children are well on their way
to developing empathyand other advanced emotional resp onses It was also shown
that a simple sensor based b ehavior system suchasthe one in the A ectiveTigger is
su cientto pro duce the comp elling app earance that the A ectiveTigger has feel
ings of his own The big question however remains unanswered could a child learn
from rep eated exp osure playing with the A ectiveTigger to recognize feelings and
to resp ond appropriately to them
Thesis Advisor
Rosalind W Picard
Asso ciate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
Sp ecial thanks to myadvisor Roz Picard for her suggestion of building a Tigger that
resp onds to emotional expression and for her patience Bruce Blumberg for generating
the spark that ignited this pro ject Hiroshi Ishii for challenging me to extend myself
Fred Martin for his help with the Handy Board Linda Kiley for all her assistance
Chris Metcalfe for his voice and Cole Porter for all those sanity fetchbreaks
For the duration of this thesis the child will b e referred to as a she and Tigger as a he to
avoid confusion
The A ective Tigger
Thesis Committee
Thesis Reader
Hiroshi Ishii
Asso ciate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thesis Reader
Bruce Blumberg
AssistantProfessor of Media Arts and Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Contents