The Aective Tigger

a study on the construction of an emotionally

reactivetoy

by

Dana Kirsch

BS CognitiveScience

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences Scho ol of Architecture and

Planning in partial fulllmentof 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

Mayth

Certied 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 Aective 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 fulllmentofthe requirements for the degree

of Master of Science in Media Technology

Abstract

The AectiveTigger is a toythatresp onds to the user or playmate in a natural

and emotive manner Sp ecicallythe AectiveTigger recognizes and reacts to the

emotion the child is exhibiting For example when the child is happily playing with



the Aective 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 Aective

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 Aective Tigger is b oth mimicking the mo o d expressed bythechild and reacting

to a b ehavior exhibited bythechild namely b ouncing him The AectiveTiggerwas

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

AectiveTigger 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 sensorbased b ehavior system suchasthe one in the AectiveTigger is

sucientto pro duce the comp elling app earance that the AectiveTigger has feel

ings of his own The big question however remains unanswered could a child learn

from rep eated exp osure playing with the AectiveTigger 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 sanityfetchbreaks



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 Aective 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

Intro duction

Pro ject Motivations             

The Call for the Formalization of Emotional Education in Scho ols

Aective Computing           

Related Work        

Child Development             

Moral Assumptions           

Emotional Recognition in the Very Young Infant    

Emotional Expression in the Infant       

Acquisition of a Sense of Self and Other      

The Emergence of Empathyinthe Prescho oler 

The Role of PlayintheEmotional Developmentofa Child 

The theoretical use of the AectiveTiggerasatoolfor the emo

tional education of children with developmental impairments

suchasautism            

Pilot Study

Playing with a Stued Animal     

Recognizing Tiggers Expressions     

Redesigning the AectiveTigger    

Preliminary Conclusions        

Constructing an ExpressiveToy

Design Goals and Philosophy     

Huggable Computing           

Theory WhyitwillWork     

Description of the AectiveTigger         

Phase Expression           

Phase Detection           

Phase Recognition           

Description of the Child for Which the AectiveTigger is Intended 

Emotional Sensitivity        

The Child Trials

Metho d                

Sub jects              

Data Quantication Pro cedure        

Summary of Results and Discussion from the Child Trials 

Error Analysis        

Evaluation

The Plush        

The Child        

Conclusion        

A Lab oratory Pro cedures

B The Release Forms for the Aective Tigger Trials

B ConsentForm for the MIT communityfor the AectiveTigger pro ject

B ConsentForm for the California Community for the AectiveTigger

pro ject                

B Video Tap e Consent        

C Do cuments for the AectiveTigger Child Trials

C The Story Line for the AectiveTigger        

C Preliminary Questions for the AectiveTiggerChild Trials   

C Debrieng the AectiveTigger trial         

C The FollowupPhone call           

D Quantied Results

D The Indep endent Data Collection Survey    

E Cost Estimate for the AectiveTigger Toy

F Ab out the Author

F Publications       

F Awards                

F Other                

Chapter

Intro duction

The Aective Tigger is a pro ject to construct an emotionally reactive and emotion



ally expressivetoy Anemotionally reactivetoyisone that recognizes emotionally

laden cues from the playmate or resp onds to the playmate with an expression of

an emotion The AectiveTiggerdoesboth Hop efullyasthechild plays with the

AectiveTigger she learns to recognize his expressions and b egins to notice a causal

relationship b etween her b ehavior and his resp onses Eventuallyshe might recognize

his expressions as either a p ositiveornegative reaction to her b ehavior The larger

goal is for her to generalize that her actions havesocial consequences At the same

time weare observing the form that the childcomputer interaction takes on and we

are b eginning to extrap olate what kinds of mo dications to maketothe computer

toyWeareinterested in howtochildpro of computer interfaces while maintaining

the sense of child orientedness inherentina toy

There are three phases that comprise the AectiveTigger pro ject expression de

tection and recognition Expression refers to the capabilityoftheAective Tigger to

communicate his emotional state to the child The AectiveTigger uses facial move

ments voice and resp onsiveness to demonstrate his current state Detection refers

to the AectiveTiggers sensory capabilities As the child plays with the Aective



For more information on dening and distinguishing emotions see Arnold MB Ekman P

Friesen WV Ellsworth P Frijda NH Izard Carol and Kagan

J

Tigger she naturally holds and moves him in a manner that is emotionally expressive

The Aective Tigger is designed to sense sp ecic cues which corresp ond to the childs

expression of emotion Finallythe recognition phase consists of trials with children

to evaluate the Aective Tigger according to the appropriateness of his reactions to

the child This phase concluded with b oth an evaluation of the AectiveTiggers



behavioral system and an assessmentof the childs level of emotional development

Pro ject Motivations

The Aective Tigger pro ject concerns b oth the construction of an emotionally reac

tivetoyand the so cialemotional awareness education of the child In fact the two

are intimately linked The study of the developmentof emotional intelligence lends

itself to the construction of a computertoyThis construction pro cess itself provides

meaningful insightinto the emotional developmentofchildren whichinturn drive

the construction pro cess and redesign in a cycle of progress

The Call for the Formalization of Emotional Educa

tion in Scho ols

The emotional education debate includes big questions like whydoweneed to teach

children ab out emotions in scho ol at all and howshouldsuch teachings b e imple

mented Scho ols are torn b etween taking resp onsibilityfor the emotional education

of its students and with it the liability when things dont go as planned and leaving

it as it is to dayuptothe parents

Educators long disturb ed byscho ol childrens lagging in math and read

ing are realizing there is a dierentand more alarming deciency emo

tional illiteracy Signs of the deciency can b e seen in violentincidents



Emotional Intelligence is a term used extensively by Daniel Goleman that refers to ones ability

to rein in emotional impulse to read anothers innermost feelings to handle relationships smo othly

is as Aristotle put it the rare skill to b e angry with the rightperson to the rightdegree at the

righttimefor the rightpurposeandintherightway Goleman

suchasthesho oting of Ian and Tyrone growing ever more common in

American scho ols Goleman

Most so cial scientists agree with Daniel Goleman that there is a need for emotional

education in a formalized setting Recentevents like the April scho ol sho oting

at the Littleton High Scho ol in Colorado continue to op en the eyes of the public to the

problems that can accompanyanunderdevelop ed emotional intelligence While some

scientists havebeen studying the eects of the emotional developmentofchildren for

years others are just b eginning to lo ok at these questions It is unfortunate that

it takes a tragedy for p eople to wanttomakea change in the currenteducational

system

Children who gained more insightinto their emotional lives were b etter

able to cop e with distress and anxietytothe extentthattheygained

insightinto the causes of those emotions Harris

If the education of the emotions were merely a matter of development

it would pro ceed under its own momentumandnot require the help or

intervention of teachers In the case of human b eings an essential part

of this environmentisthepresence of other human b eings who not only

attend to them meeting their physical needs but interact with them

For man is essentially a so cial b eing The aims of the education of the

emotions are to provide a suitable environmentfortheunfolding of the

aectiveaspects of the p erson Dunlop

Perhaps the most disturbing data comes from a massivesurvey of parents

and teachers and shows a worldwide trend for the presentgeneration of

children to b e more troubled emotionally than the last more lonely and

depresses more angry and unrulymore nervous and prone to worry more

impulsiveand aggressive Goleman

Wetakeemotional developmentfor granted For the most part we regard

it as something that just happ ens Thus retarded emotional develop

ment emotional immaturity poor impulse control and so forth are used

to explain a p ersons inappropriate so cial b ehavior and many other kinds

of pathological b ehavior But p erhaps we should lo ok at emotional

maturityasadesirable educational and so cial ob jective Todothiswe

must giveupthe idea that our emotions are innate and just transferred

from one ob ject to another I would argue that emotional development

is a pro duct of emotional education It is not just something that o ccurs

naturally but it is a manifestation of parental and caretaker values They

listen to their childrens comments and questions and resp ond to them

Dup ont

If there is a remedy I feel it must lie in howweprepare our young for life

Atpresentwe leave the emotional education of our children to chance with

ever more disastrous results As Aristotle says the problem is not with

emotionalitybut with the appropriateness of emotion and its expression

The question is how can webringintelligence to our emotions and civility

to our streets and caring to our communal life

Abilities suchasbeing able to motivate oneself and p ersist in the face of

frustration to control impulse and delaygratication to regulate ones

mo o ds and keep distress from swamping the abilityto think to empathize

and to hop e to recognize emotions in our selves and others can indeed

be learned and improved up on bychildren if webother to teachthem

Goleman

Rather than dwell on the negative sensationalizing the problem Daniel Goleman

has searched for a solution He has come up with a curriculum for teachers to integrate

into their classro om sessions designed to augmenta childs emotional development

The opp onents to this implementation argue that it is not appropriate to teachkids

ab out emotions in classro oms rather it is the job of the family to educate their young

This opp osition is b eginning to wane esp ecially in the face of huge tragedies linked

to the underdevelopmentof emotional intelligence

On the one hand scho ols are designed to keep kids busy learning ab out

the outer world and not ab out themselves On the other hand families are

not helping They are either disintegrating they cant aord to waste

time listening to teenage issues or they just dont knowhowtohandle

the complexityofissues involved When adults are gone kids sp end time

with technology ie video games online forums email etc However

most of these technologies do not supp ort childrens introsp ection and

communication ab out their insights to others Only when crisis happ ens

do es the Internet b ecome a collectiveFreuds coach Whywait so long

Ibelievethatwe can design technological environments that would engage

kids on a regular basis not only after a crisis Ialsobelievethat

technology byitself wont b e the solution to complex so cial problems that

giverise to events like the one in Colorado HoweverIamconvinced that

as researchers designing learning environments wecanaddourtwo cents

to provide b etter technological to ols to help p eople connect with their

inner world and their communities Excerpt from an email from Marina

Umaschi Bers to the MIT Media Lab

The use of technology to augmentthe emotional education in scho ols and at home

is an exciting prosp ect that has not b een fully realized The AectiveTigger is one

of these to ols The larger goal of the AectiveTigger pro ject is to assess the viability

of using a computer controlled toytoteachthe skills of emotional intelligence in an

explicit manner The choice of a toyspecically a plush animal was a result of the

desire to app eal to the prescho ol aged child

The prescho ol years are crucial ones for laying foundation skills and there

is some evidence that Head Start can havebenecial longterm emotional

and so cial eects on the lives of its graduates even into their early adult

years fewer drug problems and arrests b etter marriages greater earn

ing p ower The Kindergarten year marks a p eak rip ening of the so cial

emotions feelings suchasinsecurityandhumility jealousy and envy

Figure Rosalind Picard and son Michael holding the AectiveTigger

pride and condence Children in the youngest grades get lessons in self

awareness relationships and decisionmaking Some of the most eective

programs in emotional literacy were develop ed as a resp onse to a sp ecic

problem notably violence As a so cietywehavenot b othered to make

sure every child is taughtthe essentials of handling anger or resolving con

icts p ositively nor havewebothered to teachempathy impulse control

or anyofthe other fundamentals of emotional comp etence By leaving

the emotional lessons children learn to chance werisklargely wasting the

windowofopp ortunitypresented bytheslowmaturation of the brain to

help children cultivate a healthyemotional rep ertoire Goleman

Aective Computing

The Aective Tigger pro ject is part of a larger eld of researchcalled Aective

computing Picard This group is fo cused on combining computer science with

emotion research This excerpt from the Aective computing web page explains the

larger goal of the Aectivecomputing group These goals also apply to the Aective

Tigger pro ject

Aective computing is computing that relates to arises from or delib

erately inuences emotions Our researchfocuses on creating p ersonal

computational systems endowed with the abilitytosense recognize and

understand human emotions together with the skills to resp ond in an

intelligent sensitive and resp ectful manner toward the user and hisher

emotions Weare also interested in the developmentofcomputers that

aid in communicating human emotions computers that assist and sup

port people in developmentoftheir skills of so cialemotional intelligence

and computers that have emotional mechanisms as well as the intelli

gence and ethics to appropriately manage express and otherwise utilize

these emotions Embracing the latter goal of giving machines emotions

is p erhaps the most controversial and is based on a varietyofscientic

ndings which include indications that emotion plays a crucial role in

enabling a resourcelimited system to adapt intelligently to complex and

unpredictable situations

In short wethink mechanisms of emotion will b e needed to build human

centered machines whichareable to resp ond intelligently and sensitively

to the complex and unpredictable situations common to humancomputer

interaction Aectivecomputing researchaimsto makefundamental im

provements in the abilityof computers to servehuman users including

reducing the frustration that is prevalentinhumancomputer interaction

We exp ect that eorts in building aective computers will also facilitate

substantial contributions to researchonbasichuman emotions Group

Ab out Aective Computing

Related Work

There are several other pro jects in progress to develop aectivetoys Rather than

recognizing cues from the playmate these p et rob ots resp ond to the playmate with

an expression of an emotion Some are scientic based designed to realistically mo del

the emotional states of a real animal Others are more closely aligned with toys These

toypetrobots are twitchy cuddly creatures designed to entertain the playmate

A rob ot that emulates the b ehavior of a real animal is not a new concept The

Aective Tigger is not however an exercise in articial intelligence His motivations

are not self guided nor do they arise on their own without provo cation The Aective

Tigger do es not get hungry or thirsty The reason for this is that he isdesigned to

facilitate researchinto the emotional education of children rather than to explore an

exp erimental implementation of a theoretical emotional mo del

There are four sp ecic pro ducts on the market to daythat are related to the

Aective Tigger The rst one on the scene was Microsoft with their release

of a computer and video reactiveBarney doll and their release of a similarly

designed alb eit slightly more sophisticated Arthur doll Both Barney and Arthur

are facilitators toys That is they are resp onsiveonly to a predetermined set of cues

from either the television or the computer Their goal is to engage the child with

that medium The AectiveTigger on the other hand resp onds to the child directly

as a so cial partner rather than simply facilitating a shared television or computer

exp erience Both Microsoft dolls havelimited resp onsiveness to the child directly

For example if you cover their eyes they commentonhowdark it suddenly b ecame

However neither one strives to assess the emotional mo o d of the playexp erience

Barney and Arthur are classied as educational toys Barney teaches the prescho oler

rudimentary computer skills and keeps themcompanywhile they watchtelevision

while Arthur also teaches the slightly older child howtotelltime The Aective

Tigger on the other hand is instructing the child on something far less tangible

The Aective Tigger isatoyonwhichtopractice emotional development skills and

aective communication

The rest of the similar pro ducts are not commercial sp ecial plush as muchas

they are rob ots Omron a Japanese companyhas develop ed a rob otic house cat

named Tama Tashiro Tashima Sonyhas a rob otic dog Lab oratory

and Honda Motor Corp has a bip edal humanoid named P The fo cus of these groups

is the implementation of a realistic emotion system They are developing a b ehavior

mo del for the cat and dog that incorp orates emotions into the motivational system

The cat for example interacts with users and her surroundings as well as having

her own internal drives sleep curiosityattention The emotional expressions of the

cat rob ot include satisfaction anger uneasiness and disgust Neither the cat nor

the dog resp onds directly to the aect of the user However similar to the Aective

Tigger the rob otic cat do es reinforce go o d b ehaviors likepetting and stroking and

she do es b ecome angry when the user rep eatedly hits her The AectiveTigger is

an instructional toyHeresp onds directly to the child without ulterior motives such

as hunger or sleep to confuse his b ehavioral expression When a child makes the

AectiveTigger unhappyitisbecause of something that the child has done and not

that the AectiveTiggerishungry or sleepyorhas some other unfullled need

Another scientic rob ot b eing develop ed is Kismet a rob otic infantfor so cial

interaction Cynthia Breazeal working under professor Ro dney Bro oks of the MIT

Articial Intelligence Lab is studying the anthrop omorphic phenomenon that o ccurs

between mother and infant Kismet has a range of facial expressions whichheand

his user b oth learn to asso ciate with his dierentdrives The fo cus of this researchis

on the wayhumans imp ose meaning on every co o and gurgle an infantmay make

Kismet has b een develop ed to investigate the emotional b ehaviors of the rob ot as

seen through physical interaction b etween human and rob ot You can pat stroke

hold or even b eat anyoftheserob ots The dierence is that the Aective Tigger

is not an implementation of an emotional mo del His internal comp osition is very

at so the user can see the eects of her actions directly All of these scientic

rob ots havecomplex internal Articial Life systems that are reected in that they

strivetosatisfy their own needs and they do not necessarily ob ey you Rather than

toys fo cused on the playmate these rob ots are autonomous egocentric entities with

behaviors arising from various needs The AectiveTigger on the other hand is user

centered Without the stimulus of a playmate the AectiveTigger sits lifeless on

the shelf

Finallythere is Furbya toy made by TIGER toys and Hasbro Furbyisanon

descript animal with huge ears moving eyes and a b eak whichmakes it very dierent

from a character like Tigger who has a well develop ed p ersonalityanda storyFurby

is rep orted to not only belch and pass gas but it learns as it matures going from

Furbish nonsense to such English phrases as big light when placedinthe sun and

big noise when subjectedtotrac Variety However the idea that Furby

is learning is questionable at b est Furbys only exhibition of an emotional state is

when he b egins to sing However what causes Furbytobecomehappy enough to start

singing is unclear and probably random The Aective Tigger on the other hand

displays emotions in resp onse to the playmate His happy state is a form of reward to

the playmate for gentle b ehavior Furbys unresp onsiveness to b eing smacked around

or turned upside down makehim seem less likea social friend and more likea toy

Cynthia Breazeal sums up Furbys attributes quite elo quently when she says

I actually have Furbys I b oughtthemtosee what of AI will get you

these days Turns out it wont get you anyAI Not surprisinglyFurbyis

not a so cial creature It do esnt havedrives goals or any sort of internal

agenda it has to satisfyItdoesnt p erceiveor really express anysortof

emotions feelings aective states etc It do esnt learn although thats

what the Tiger folks would likekidstobelieve However they havehooked

up some cute animated resp onses to various sensory triggers switches IR

inclination simple sounds They to ok the extra step of having some of

these animated resp onses released as Furby gets older whichiskindof

co ol So their b ehavior does change over time although not b ecause

of learning They can also resp ond to eachother through IR and their

interactions get more sophisticated over time again not b ecause of any

learning I think thats a nice extension of past toys However needless

to saymy fears of having myPhD embodied ina toyhave not come

to pass Excerpt from an email sentbyCynthia Breazeal

In general these aectivetoys and rob ots havebegun to pro duce emotionally

conscientious computer interfaces The AectiveTigger is in the unique p osition

of b eing an educational computertoyHeisnot only recognizing and synthesizing

emotional information but also using resp onsiveness to teach the playmate ab out

actions and consequences

The AectiveTiggers reaction is indirectly pro duced by the childs emotional

behavior Thus the connection can b e made that if the child is hurting him the

Aective Tigger b ecomes unhappyAndvisa versa We expect the child to discover

the general rule from a set of experiences by means of induction Script metaphor

to know the meaning of the wordfear to have the concept expressedbythat word is

to know the sequenceofexperiences which occur inafearful situation Saarni and

Harris Sp ecicallythrough normal play exp erience the child learns what

she can do to make Tigger sad Once the child makes the connection b etween her

behavior and his resp onse she has learned and demonstrated what I am referring to as

emotional recognition If the child can take the next developmental step and discover

what she can do to makehimhappyagain she has learned and demonstrated

compassion and empathyThis is the b eginning of emotional intelligence

Child Development

If wewere asked to describ e the sort of p erson wewould b e most frightened

of wemightwell think of a man whose intellectual p owers were outstand

ing and prop erly trained but who had no heart and no feelings Such

aperson we might think would b e capable of anyenormity Wemay

also recall o ccasions when wehaveheard p eople sayabout their childrens

education I dont care howclever he is or howmany qualications he

gets out of scho ol As long as his hearts in the rightplace he wont go far

wrong Parents and Educational writers haveconsistently criticized

scho ols for failing to out the heart of their pupils in the rightplace or

in mo dern terms for failing to educate their emotions There can b e no

doubt of the very great imp ortance of aective education Dunlop

Emotional developmentinthe preop erational child progresses through several

stages The rst skill to b e acquired is emotional recognition then expression and

a developmentofa sense of self until nally the child internalizes these lessons and

becomes aware of other p eoples feelings The nal stage of acquiring empathyis

not an end unto itself Eachindividual develops dierentlysome end up with more

so cial understanding and awareness of emotions and aect than others I havechosen

to explore the viabilityof using an emotionally reactivetoytoaugment the initial

developmentof compassion and emotional understanding in young children The

study of the renementof empathic developmentinolder children is left for future

work

Moral Assumptions

Children develop at dierentspeeds and with dierentpersonalities and yet there

are some fundamental commonalities within that development These general rules

apply b oth to the emotional developmentofthechild as well as to their physical

growth The dierence b etween the so cialization of a child and the p ersonal b eliefs

or morals welivebyisthat so cialization is the practice of acquiring the general

rules and roles of so cietyThere is a careful balance to b e struckinwhat is so cially

appropriate b ehavior and what is p ersonal choice However developmentofthe

awareness of these so cial norms is extremely critical b ecause they comprise the basic

to ols of aectivecommunication

Language enables us to communicate There is a natural language of

gesture and so on but b ecause of the op en nature of our instinctual

drives this has to b e supplemented by cultural languages or languages

that havetobe taughtand learnt Language binds us together with

some p eople and separates us from others Wespeak manylanguages

Dunlop

The goal of all agents of so cialization is to increase a childs so cial com

petence to teachchildren what their so cietyexp ects of them and to give

them the skills needed to meet those exp ectations The universal goals

of so cialization are as follows

Tofulll physical needs in appropriate ways

Tocontrol aggression

Tomaster the physical environment

Tomaster the so cial environment

Toperform essential skills

Tobehaveinaccord with the so cietys moral values

Toprepare for the future

Tobeboth an eectiveindividual and an eectivemember of the group

Fischer

Morals are the p ersonal goals we eachcho ose to livebyIncreating the Aective

Tigger it was imp ortanttobuild up on the so cial norms listed ab ove and to leavethe

personal grayareasuntouched The universal truths I leveraged o of stem from the

assumption that the AectiveTigger is more than just a toy His animal form makes

him almost alive From a conversation with Sherry Turkle whichallows me

to makesome assumptions regarding what b ehaviors exhibited bythechild are right

or more acceptable ie hugging b ouncing etc whereas others are less acceptable

and therefore lab eled wrong ie hitting p oking etc While it is true that my

assumptions do not hold true in all o ccasions and for all cultures for example we

can imagine a culture that hunts and eats the meat of tigers wherein it maybe

highly encouraged for children to gain the courage to p okeat the eyes they are a

conservativeplace to b egin given the children I was likely to encounter in these trials

The aective education of a child isavery large task indeed involving parents

siblings and p eers as well as teachers It b egins almost at birth and continues to

evolve throughout ones lifetime During Piagets preop erational stage from age

until ab out the child undergo es the most radical so cialization The child is

transformed from a dep endent ego centric infanttoacompassionate caring scho ol

child A review of the literature on this transformation is the basis for the rest of this

chapter

Emotional Recognition in the Very Young Infant

That no continuityofpersonalityfrom infancy to adultho o d has yet b een

found do es not necessarily mean that none exists Fischer

Children seem to develop an awareness of emotional expressions extremely young

Atabout nine months of age infants begin to monitor the emotional responses of

other people By one year of age normal ly developing infants arediscriminating

in expressing emotion During the second year infants continue to rene their

awareness of others attention seek out emotional cues and increasingly use them

to guide their behavior Sigman and Capps Other researchers argue that this

recognition may develop even earlier but that our metho ds for detecting it are awed

As an example Piaget do cumented sp ontaneous smiling at four months whereas

Legerstee demonstrates that as early as two months infants treat p eople as

so cial ob jects dierently than other kinds of ob jects

In the rst months of life the infantisquite helpless She relies on a care giver to

intervene to relieve stress distress fear frustration and other negative emotions She

becomes conditioned to the idea that the p eople around her will resp ond and b ehave

in a particular manner For the very young child success is extremely imp ortant

To feel gratied promotes optimism and trust b etween the child and care giver This

gratication initially comes from the care giver directlyAsthe child b egins to explore

her world she instinctively returns to the care giver p erio dically for emotional cues

and gratication

Exhibiting a b ehavior known as so cial referencing infants lo ok at their

care givers when faced with a situation whichisambiguous Further

infants resp ond to the emotional signal conveyed approaching in resp onse

to p ositiveaect and retreating in resp onse to negative aect Sigman and

Capps

Piaget demonstrated that by ten months of age the child is able to discriminate

strangers and b egins to show separation anxiety from the mother Piaget

This clearly demonstrates the childs acquisition of face recognition but do es not

directly imply that recognition of emotional facial expressions has develop ed

Darwin was among the rst to do cumentfacial expressions in humans

and animals Darwin do cumented similarities in the facial expressions of p eople across

cultures in addition to studying p osture and movementin the limbs trunk and head

His conclusion that emotions their expression and their recognition are innate and

universal are currently in dispute PEkman and Ellsworth Carol Ellis Izard

and Za jonc and others Some of these rep orts claim that until to years

children from dierentcultures can not even accurately identify happyand unhappy

resp onses in other p eople Borke Ekman

In summarythe internalization of emotional recognition bythechild is approxi

mated to o ccur b etween the rst and third year Contrary to Darwins b elief that this

abilityisinnate the general consensus is that through so cial referencing a child will

learn to discriminate b etween p ositiveandnegativevalenced emotions The Aective

Tigger pro ject provides further researchinto the assessmentofatwhat age emotional

recognition is acquired

The capacitytodistinguish among dierentexpressions of emotion is not

tantamounttothe p ossession of a concept of anyof the discriminated

emotions Admittedly it is p ossible certainly Darwin argues as much

that infants haveaninnate capacitynotsimply to recognize particular

facial expression of emotion but also to identify the emotional state that

they conveyItseems safer to view the infantasbeingwell tuned to the

discrimination of emotional expression but requiring considerable instruc

tion in their signicance Children can not understand the most basic

emotional states unless they p enetrate b eyond the expression of those

states Saarni and Harris

Emotional Expression in the Infant

The rst step in p enetrating b eyond the capacitytorecognize the facial expression

of emotion is the generation of that same facial expression at appropriate moments

The key to this stage is the appropriateness of the expression

Newb orns resp ond to the sound of another child crying in turn with their own

crying Between and months a child will mimic the emotional facial expres

sions of their care giver Piaget explains this phenomena bysaying that infants

can not dierentiate themselves from their environment thus they areimitating what

they perceive Piaget His claim that the infantis confusing the acts of

others with her own has b een actively debated with manysupp orting and con

tradictory studies Meltzo and Mo ore Abravanel and DeYoung Leg

erstee Fontaine Hayes and Watson Ko epkeetall MeKenzie

and Over

Piaget named suchbehavior pseudoimitations b ecause of the lackofintention

alityHethoughtofthe expressions in newb orns as a reex rather than a true display

of an emotion Piaget views imitation as the bridge from the sensorimotor resp onse

to intelligence When the child b ecomes procientatimitation she will b egin to

imitate internally thereby forming a mental representation of the expression This

signals the internalization of the emotion value or b elief Internalization is exhibited

as the abilityof the child to imitate or reference something to whichtheyhavebeen

previously exp osed

Piagets studies concluded that children dont internalize or emphasize emotion

until age seven However these results are contradictory even to his own ndings

that the preconceptual child aged to also achieves the capacitytoformmental

representations for absentthings or events

By four years of age children attempt to talk themselves out of their frus

tration bytrying to convince themselves that they did not want whatever

it was they could not have or alternatively attempt to removethe prohi

bition bypersuading others that they should havethe ob ject they desire

Sigman and Capps

This more sophisticated use of logic demonstrates a mastery of control over emo

tional expression While mimicry is and imp ortanttoolfor understanding the emo

tional developmentof the child it can not b e used alone Rather in conjunction

with physical and verbal cues captured on video tap e their combination forms the

measure of the childs developmental level Sp ecicallypart of the Aective Tigger

pro ject was designed to use these criterion to asses the childs ability and found evi

dence corrob orating the ab ove conclusion that it is during the b eginning of the fourth

year that children nally internalize their understanding of emotional expressions

Acquisition of a Sense of Self and Other

Howdoes the child come to understand that another p erson is feeling

happyorsad angry or afraid An understanding of the feelings of other

people is something that weexpect of anynormal human b eing but the

origins of that understanding are not obvious Harris

The emergence of an awareness of a sense of other is a necessary precursor to emo

tional understanding The abilitytomimicappropriate emotional resp onses emerges

well b efore this fundamental knowledge However once the child had b oth mimicry

and a sense of other she has arrived at a turning p ointinher development Such

knowledge enables aective communication b etween p eople

The prescho ol child has a go o d understanding of the causes and conse

quences of basic emotions suchashappinesssadness fear and anger

The acquisition of mature emotion categories would seem to dep end on

the abilitytoconceptualize itself and others as exp eriencers of particular

kinds of internal states Saarni and Harris

Piaget characterizes prescho olers bytheirego centrism an inabilityto takethe

persp ectiveofanother p erson This lackofempathydoesnot mean they are selsh

rather they can not think any other wayAccording to Piaget the understanding

of self as an ob ject in space develops after the understanding of other ob jects and

do es not emerge until the middle of the second year Piaget

Other researchers havedemonstrated that this sense of self emerges even earlier

Toestablish themselves as indep endentindividuals children must men

tally separate themselves from their mothers This initial understand

ing gradually develops into selfassertion The babybetween and

months of age b egins to makehisown wishes known even when they clash

with his mothers Fischer

Further Piaget claims that an awareness of other develops long after the aware

ness of self Piaget Piaget demonstrated this with his famous mountain range

exp erimentPiaget and Inhelder In it they ask a child to drawamountain

range from the viewp ointofa doll The childs inabilitytoputthemselves in the

place of the doll resulted in the conclusion that children can not empathize until ap

proximately the age of seven years Subsequentexperiments however Flavell

Marvin et al Whitehurst Sonnenschein demonstrate that by the age

of orachild can in fact takethepointofview of another p erson

The signicance of the developmentofa clear distinction of self and other can

be seen from the following passage A smal l sample of depressed children clearly

view depression as a combination of sadness and fear In approximately half of the

descriptions children reported that they weremadat the self whereas the remaining

accounts provided example of anger directedoutward toward others Saarni and Har

ris This is a situation where formalized instruction could havedirect b enets

for the depressed children If they knew howtodirect their anger and learned not to

confuse sadness with fear they mightbeabletolearn howtomanage their feelings

Intentionality emerges again as the ruler for the measurementofthe development

of self and other What complicates this assessmentisthe same problem of imitation

discussed previously Children b etween the ages of and seem to go through

the motions of recognizing the other as an indep endententity long b efore they

haveinternalized the concept In the AectiveTigger pro ject the emergence of a

recognition of other is assessed as emerging during the third year

The Emergence of EmpathyinthePrescho oler

Empathyisan emotional resp onse that arises in a p erson as a result

of recognizing anothers emotional state or condition Collo quially we

refer to sympathypains that are very similar or identical to what the

other individual is p erceived to exp erience This abilitytounderstand

the others internal state is characterized byastrong emotional resp onse

Lennon and Eisenberg

Empathybuilds on selfawareness the more op en we are to our own emo

tions the more skilled wewill b e in reading feelings Alexithymicswho

havenoidea what they feel themselves are at a complete loss when it

comes to knowing what anyone else around them is feeling They are emo

tionally tonedeaf The emotional notes and chords that weavethrough

peoples words and actions the telling tone of voice or shift in p osture

the elo quent silence or telltale tremblego byunnoted Confused ab out

their own feelings alexithymicsare equally b ewildered when other p eo

ple express their feelings to them It is a tragic failing in what it means

to b e human For all rapp ort the ro ot of caring stems from emotional

attunement from the capacityforempathy

That capacity the abilityto knowhowanother feels comes into playin

avast arrayoflifearenas from sales and managementto romance and

parenting to compassion and p olitical action The absence of empathy

is also telling Its lackisseen in criminal psychopaths rapists and child

molesters Goleman

Comforting b ehaviors seem to increase in frequency from the age of to the age

of It is not clear at what p ointthechild makes the transition from mimicry to

internalization Even young children often seem to b e motivated byanunderstanding

of and p erhaps an emotional resp onse to anothers situation and needs Eisenb erg

Childrens reactions to another p ersons distress change with age Until

the end of the rst year they usually remain bystanders They often b e

come upset themselves but they do not makeanyactiveattempt to com

fort someb o dy else in distress In their second year young children b egin

to delib erately try to alleviate distress in another p erson they comfort

their parents and siblings at home and later they comfort other children

in the nursery scho ol particularly if they are hurt Elder children are

often observed comforting younger ones And in turn the younger children

often turn to the older ones for comfort

Reactions to another p ersons distress vary enormously from child to

child By the age of years children resp onded on one third of those

occasions in whichthey sawsomeone in distress They did not resp ond

dierently if they had or had not caused the distress Some children re

sp onded to more than half the incidents whereas others resp onded to only

one in twenty

There is also the matter of exp ectation of a parentonanolderchild that

the child will b e sympathetic to a younger sibling Most children will b e

told at some p ointthat it is go o d to help comfort or share with other

children and bad to upset them They are quite sensitiveto issues of right

and wrong whatever their b ehavior mightleadone to exp ect Young

children fo cus not on the adult reactions but on the ways that the victims

themselves react for a clear indication that moral transgressions are more

serious than violations of convention Children start to categorize an

action as morally wrong rather than conventionally wrong if they learn

that it causes distress Achild who has sp enta lot of time with other

children will havebeen exp osed to a go o d deal of information ab out what

do es and do es not constitute a serious breach The childs moral intuitions

are inextricably b ound up with an understand of emotion A child who

do es not understand that someone is distressed nor what causes it will

scarcely conclude that the action that caused it is wrong Eisenberg

The notion of who caused the distress is an imp ortantcomponentofthe Aective

Tigger pro ject Some children were reluctanttomakeTigger sad even when their

accompanying adult encouraged it Other children found the p ower of hurting the

AectiveTigger to b e quite intoxicating In prescho ols it has b een demonstrated that

there is an increase in teasing with age Harris This suggests that the prescho ol

children are b oth developing a sense of other and an awareness of emotions The

increase in teasing mightbe attributable to the childs wayofexploring her new found

power The AectiveTigger b ecomes a safe space to practice on With rep eated play

hop efully she can learn that there are similar consequences with the Aective Tigger

as with her other playmates The b enet is that the AectiveTigger can withstand

numerous rep etitions whereas a real playmate maynever come to play again

Again wesee the confounding source is imitation The child maybegoing through

the motions of comforting without understanding what it is she is doing Piaget re

solved this imitation dilemmaby resorting to the childs abilitytopro duce a coherent

verbal accountof the mental pro cesses underlying her b ehavior This limited his

ndings to the op erational stage approximately seven or eightyears old Again

there is a danger that the young childs true abilityisseriously underestimated As

exp ected many studies have found the emergence of empathymuchearlier Lennon

and Eisenb erg The Aective Tigger pro ject relies on empathyasamarker

of emotional development In conjunction with the demonstration of emotional re

straint a b ehavior that can not b e faked they provide an overall assessmentofthe

childs level of emotional development

The Role of PlayintheEmotional Developmentofa

Child

Playisaformofcommunication for children So on after her rst birthdayachild will

begin to exhibit empathytoward her dolls By her second birthdayshe is actively

engaged in pretend play She will imitate domestic roles and takeon the role of

other p eople mother teacher etc The abilitytoplaypretend games signals the

developmentofsymbolic representation within the child

Between two and two and a half years children b egin to endowdolls

with a capacity for action and exp erience the dolls are made to talk and

act indep endentlyand eventually credited with desires sensations and

emotions Three year olds can makea distinction b etween the real world

and the world of imagination If they are given an emotion they can

suggest a situation likely to cause it Three and four year olds are go o d

at guring out which emotions go with whichsituations Children can

conjure up pretend or imaginary psychological states suchasdesires or

b eliefs and pro ject them on to their dolls and toysoldiers Harris

How Gender Biases a Childs Play

Prescho olers are more likely to co op erate when their p eers attend to their

co op erativebehaviors Children who view other children sharing ex

pressing sympathyorhelping someone are more likely to do so themselves

Eisenb erg

Although the inuential role of p eers in the emotional developmentofa child

go es without question the issue of gender is highly controversial Some researchers

cite clear gender distinctions in the early years The learning of sex roles begins in

the preschool years and by the end of that period the behavior of boys and girls has

become dierent in many ways Boys play much morewithobjects such as building

blocks and trucks they do moreoutside activities like riding tricycles and playing

in the sand box and they ght a lot more Fischer Others argue that no

such distinction is apparent Children do not display gender dierences in empathy

when empathy is assessedwith facialgestural or vocal measures Gender dierences

in empathy may bean artifact of the methodofmeasurement Homan

Although girls may perform some types of prosocial behaviors morethan boys do

thereareno clear sex dierences in prosocial behavior Eisenberg

The theoretical use of the AectiveTigger as a to ol

for the emotional education of children with develop

mental impairments suchasautism

A secondary motivation in building a reactiveaectivetoycomes from research with

autistic children Blo cher Autism is a rare psychological disorder that has

been the sub ject of much research

There are four main symptoms that partially identify the disorder First

Autistic children do not seek so cial interaction in fact they often avoid

other p eople The second sign of autism is prolonged rep etitivebehav

iors These children mayspend hours p erforming one or twoactions with

a single ob ject or with their own b o dies The third symptom is the chil

drens characteristic reaction to interruption of this ritualistic playand

to changes in familiar parts of their environment they often resp ond

with a terrible temp er tantrum The fourth characteristic of autistic chil

dren is their severe inabilitytocommunicate in infancy through gestures

and later through language The cause of autism is unknown Most

researchers nowagree that autism is caused by some biological factor

although no one has yet b een able to identify it Fischer

Autistic children feel and express emotion but havea dicultyin making

sense of other p eoples emotions Although autistic children may learn to

understand what will earn them approval and disapproval in the absence

of other p eople they should exp erience neither pride nor guilt Harris

Kanner the man who rst diagnosed and named autism emphasizes that

the abnormalityin the autistic childs emotional resp onse to other p eople is the fun

damental impairment When children with autism do engage in triadic interaction

then it is general ly to make a request and very rarely to sharean emotion or expe

rience Sigman and Capps

As with decits in imitation and jointattention b ehaviors the eects of

insucientsocial referencing b ehavior are farreaching and cumulative

These decits restrict access to information that is relevanttoa given

situation and what is more imp ortantthey diminish autistic p ersons

participation in creating shared meaning Joint attention and so cial refer

encing b ehaviors enable children to learn through and from other p eople

howtoresp ond to ob jects and events b oth emotionally and b ehaviorally

Sigman and Capps

Often these children seem not to know what they are exp eriencing One

little girl told her therapist Id likemyfeelings to b e dead b ecause I

get afraid theyre going on and on and never stop and then I will just

disapp ear in the feeling Cohen and Donnellan

Autistic children need increased rep etition to learn certain so cial skills Lovaas

et all successfully used rep etition as the primary teaching technique for

autistic children and it is still used to day By engaging the autistic child with a

toy suchas the Aective Tigger that has innite patience the child can practice

emotional recognition skills with hundreds of rep etitions

The questions surrounding the emotional developmentofa child remain quite

unanswered Do infants havefeeling states At what age do expressivebehaviors

begin to reect those states reliably Thus far we can only show that the age range

from years to is marked with some dramatic emotional development milestones

We can however nowidentify some of the criterion on whichtomeasure our assess

mentofthechilds emotional intelligence With this ruler wecanlook at the

year old children and b egin to identify their progress in quantitativeways

The AectiveTigger pro ject attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of employing

a computer controlled toyinthestudy of childrens emotional development To this

end welooked at the eects of age shyness and siblings on a measure of emotional

intelligence of eleven dierentchildren Toquantify the level of emotional develop

mentof the child welooked for signs of a develop ed sense of other recognition of the

emotion expressed by the AectiveTigger mimicry of his expressions verbalization

of feelings emotional restraint and physical acts of empathy

Chapter

Pilot Study

Before the AectiveTigger was constructed and evaluated the hyp othesis that a child

could learn ab out emotions from a toywas formulated To assist in enabling this

formulation twopreliminary questions had to b e resolved First do children imp ose

emotions onto their stued animals Prior researchEisenberg suggests that

year old children are b eginning to imagine their dolls havefeelings Secondly can

achild recognize the emotional expressions of the AectiveTigger The following

pilot study was sp ecically made to test this question

Playing with a Stued Animal

The systems sensors and b ehaviors at work in the AectiveTigger are customized to

b oth the Disney version of Tiggers p ersonalityand to one particular stued animal

One could not for example takeout the workings and put them into saya Smurf

and exp ectittomakesense For one thing a Smurf do esnt b ounce likea happy

Tigger do es A Smurf would express happiness in ways wholly dierent from Tigger

dep ending on whichSmurf was chosen

There are dozens of stued Tigger dolls available on the toystore shelves to day

From plain old plush toys to mechanical springy toys to fully automated b ouncing

Tiggers From the gamut of choices a single animal was chosen for its expressivity

size and weight The chosen toywas a readily available Disney store variation of

Figure A happyTigger

Tigger with big ears and a long tail

To study the impact of the chosen Tigger shap e three female and one male child

aged veto thirteen years were asked to playwith the unaltered stued Tigger In

the course of their playthechildren were asked to makeTigger lo ok happy as well

as sad From observing these play sessions several interesting features were identied

as p otentially emotionally relevant The most prominentfeature to their playwas

the availabilityofthe ears This Disney doll has esp ecially large ears and the children

immediately grabb ed and pulled on them when asked to make Tigger lo ok happyor

sad Tiggers mouth was the secondary feature of interest the children closed it to

makehim lo ok sad and let it spring backopenwhenhewas happyOnechild mimed

the action of op ening and closing a zipp er over Tiggers mouth The asso ciation of

mouth with the distinction of happyand sad is corrob orated by the researchofField

et all who noted that infants lo oked primarily at the mouth for happyand

sad expressions One child sp ecically b entTiggers head forward in resp onse to my

request to makethe AectiveTiggerlook sad Three of the children b ounced the

Aective Tigger to express happiness

Voice was another comp elling feature laden with emotional information and ex

pressivity Although it was not available in the preliminary studies the children in

the main study havebeen extremely resp onsivetothe vo calizations of the Aective

Tigger They all seem to exp ect a toytospeakeven if that utterance is complete

nonsense

Once the play sessions were underwaychildren rep eatedly asked me for more

interaction from the AectiveTigger Sp ecicallytheywanttomakehim happy

when they clap his hands together and sad when they pull on his whiskers A child

who can reason well enough to ask questions likethese is indeed pro jecting feelings

onto hisher toy and has an understanding of the causes for various emotions

Recognizing Tiggers Expressions

From the results of the rst exp eriment I created a prototyp e AectiveTigger capa

ble of limited expression Initially only his ears moved I asked three teenage children

in an informal survey if they could identify the AectiveTiggers expressions They

easily identied happy and notashappy from sad but mentioned that in general

he always lo oked happy Once I sewed the AectiveTiggers mouth shut they all

agreed that the unhappy expression was more easily identied than b efore

Redesigning the AectiveTigger

The rst prototyp e of the AectiveTigger was constructed using a single servo

motor the HANDYboardaswitch and a b end sensor I printed a skull on the

Stratasys Genisys D printer using True Space and QuickSlice This skull housed

the servomotor controlling the p ositioning of The AectiveTiggers ears This skull

was determined to b e to o hard and heavyItwas replaced with a soft rubb er ball

in the Aective Tiggers head and a custom housing for the servoinhisbody This

prototyp e had no vo cal expression and only resp onded to b eing b ounced and having

his neckbent

In the second generation of the AectiveTigger a small plastic jawwas included

that closed the AectiveTiggers mouth when he was unhappy and op ened it when

Figure The state diagram for the prototyp e AectiveTigger used in the pilot

study

he was happy Several vocalizations were added see section that represented

the various emotional states When the three teenaged children were asked to identify

the expressions of the Aective Tigger after the inclusion of voice they all commented

on howmuch easier it was

In three of the main trials the three to veyear old children were intro duced

to the AectiveTigger with no preliminary instruction and asked to gure out on

their own what it is that the AectiveTiggerdoes The children had little diculty

identifying the Aective Tiggers emotions even when they could not understand his

words they could identify that he was happyorsad On other o ccasions either the

parentprompted the child to makeTigger happy or the exp erimenter demonstrated

what to do to the Aective Tigger Sometimesthe exp erimenter was comp elled to

prompt the child by asking do es Tigger lo ok happyorsad

On one o ccasion third grade students from a nearbyelementary scho ol were

presented with twoFurbys and the AectiveTigger They to ok to the Furbys rst

then started to play with and identify the AectiveTiggers b ehaviors After ten

minutes the b oys in the class were primarily clustered around the Furbys and making

up stories ab out their chatter The girls on the other hand were primarily interested

in the Aective Tigger and were teaching eachotherwhat to do to elicit a resp onse

from him

It was counter to myintuition that the b oys of the group would b e more interested

Figure An unhappyTigger with his mouth sewn shut

in the passivityoftheFurby They were not interested in his switches or buttons

only in the vocalization pro duced It surprised me to see the girls involved in the

more hands on discovery pro cess of what makes the Aective Tigger work

Preliminary Conclusions

The four children in the rst exp erimentwere observed playing with the unaltered

stued Tigger see From these observations a prototyp e AectiveTigger was

constructed This prototyp e had animated ears that make him lo ok happywhen he

was b ounced and sad when the child b end his neckforward

The prototyp e AectiveTiggerwas then given to three teenaged children and they

were asked to identify his expressions b oth with and without voice The teenagers

were eager to oer suggestions and comments on howtoimproveuponthe prototyp e

They made it clear that more features should b e included in the next version of the

AectiveTigger Going backtotheobservations from the rst exp eriment three

more b ehaviors were selected tilt abuse and tail pull to b e measured The sensors

were carefully chosen and p ositioned in the second AectiveTigger to measure these

behaviors and to heighten the illusion that the Aective Tigger was resp onding to

the child Acquisition of this feedbackwas one of the goals of the pilot study

After the redesign of the AectiveTigger the evaluation of his success at achieving

resp onsiveness was anecdotally corrob orated when the group of third grade children

were presented with twoFurbys and the second version of the Aective Tigger

The teachers and adults observing the interaction commented that even under these

conditions the AectiveTigger app eared to b e rep onsive The children who gured

out howtohurt or comfort the AectiveTigger seemed the most excited ab out playing

with him

In general the pilot study provided the necessary feedbackof whichbehaviors to

measure for the redesign of the AectiveTigger It also demonstrated that teenage

children could recognize moreso with the inclusion of voice than without the two

mo o ds of the Aective Tigger happyandsad

Chapter

Constructing an Expressive Toy

The construction p ortion of this pro ject involved signicantdesign and redesign ef

forts Once several interesting features of the childtoyinteraction had b een isolated

a sensor was incorp orated into the AectiveTiggerwhichcould detect that b ehavior

The Aective Tigger evolved to include the incorp oration of voice and his sensors

became more rened as the children talked ab out what they did and did not like

ab out this toy

Design Goals and Philosophy

Tothechild the AectiveTiggerseems to havehisown emotions As the child plays

with him she learns b oth howtorecognize his emotional expressions and to predict

whichofherown b ehaviors giverisetohisvarious emotional expressions

Since the AectiveTigger do es not have real emotions muchofthe design ef

fort wentinto creating the illusion that he do es With the fo cus on what the child

perceived and not on the hidden layers and complex pro cessing of the sensor input

the Aective Tigger has b ecome a b elievable character apparently endowed with a

sp ectrum of feelings While the sensory interpretation is an imp ortantpartofthe

pro ject keeping it simple was the main goal in the design and redesign pro cess This

facilitates a connection b etween child and toysuch that she can directly see the con

sequences of her actions Once the child has learned the consequences that is the

Aective Tiggers resp onse to her b ehavior b oth go o d and bad hop efully she can

begin to apply that knowledge to other areas of her life

The AectiveTigger has a passivepersonalityWhenleft on his own he remains

in a neutral emotional state and sits quietly on the shelf However as the child b egins

to interact with him he comes to life strengthening the b ond b etween child and toy

This passivityincreases the contrast b etween when the child is and is not playing

with him Therebymaking his abilityto resp ond to the child even more apparent

Huggable Computing

The AectiveTigger is the rst computer a child mightbe exp osed to Hes p ortable

likea wearable computer but far more huggable Rather than a fragile or delicate

computer the AectiveTigger encourages the child to playwithhiminaphysi

cal handson manner The AectiveTigger can b e programmed in that there are

perceived direct consequences output for the actions and b ehavior input of the

child Rather than inputting programs via a keyb oard the AectiveTigger employs

abehavioral metho d of interfacing with a computer This handson computer play

is similar to the technique used on No obie a large stued computer made by Druin

The AectiveTigger likeNoobie o ccupies a physical space in our world

unlikea computer program and that foam and u existence makehimeminently

huggable

Theory WhyitwillWork

Emotional intelligence is an imp ortantcomponentofa childs development The

recognition of expressions in others is not a skill that is typically taughtinscho ol

rather children learn it by trial and error As with anyskill some p eople b ecome

better at it than others Researchhas shown that children who can recognize facial

expressions and b o dy language of others growupinto adults who can recognize the

emotional expressions of others Goleman

The recognition of emotions in others b egins with an awareness of b o dy language

Figure A close up of the Aective Tigger

Darwin do cumented p osture and movementinthe limbs trunk and head as well as

facial expression to typify emotional expression Darwin Bo dy language and

the aectiveinformation contained therein is a critical complementtovocal com

munication Playing with the AectiveTigger the child learns to asso ciate slouched

shoulders and a dro oping head with unhappiness

Teaching children so cial skills is more than an exercise in futility Manypeople

argue that children will learn that their actions haveconsequences without the aid of

atoyHowever there are dozens of alarming statistics do cumenting the increase in

violence in to days scho ols Leiderman This terrifying trend is b eing blamed

on the lackofaformalized emotional educational curriculum in scho ols Such in

struction can b enet the child when emotional intelligence is explicitly taughtinthe

classro om and is reinforced at home when the child has toys suchas the Aective

Tigger to practice her skills on

Description of the AectiveTigger

Todays Tigger is a Disney character Originally created byAlan Alexander Milne in

the Tigger character is the psychological child of the WinniethePoohcollection

b ouncy and exciting Ho Tigger is describ ed as a Very Bouncy Animal

with a way of saying Howdoyoudo which always left your ears ful l of sand

Milne Of all the Winnie The Pooh characters Tigger is the most emotionally

expressive His primitive range of emotions happytosad are easily identied by

even the youngest of children Additionally his vibrant orange coat with the jet black

strip es oer an immediate attraction to infants Tiggers p ersonalityismost often

happyorjoyful This is what p ermits him to easily b ounce backfrom an unpleasant

emotional episo de

Phase Expression

The Tigger is a very expressivecharacter capable of using b oth verbal

and nonverbal means of communication His face has eyebrows that go up and down

and a huge mouth that can curl itself into the saddest frown or stretchinto the

happiest smile AdditionallyDisneys Tigger uses b o dy language the p osition of

his ears and the hunchin his backtooutwardly show when heisperked up happy

or dro oping down sad Thomas Tigers vocalizations also include non verbal

cues of emotion There is the happyworraworraworra growl when Tigger is in an

esp ecially go o d mo o d and the sniveling sigh he makes when he is unhappy

The Aective Tiggers expressive capabilityispresently limited to happy neutral

and unhappy While children haveand can express manydierentemotions from very

early on the happy neutral and unhappyemotions are the most immediate and can

be directly coupled to go o d and bad Young children are likely to rely on cognitively

uncomplicated emotions such as happy and sad which are not only early elements of

a childs emotional lexicon but can also beeasily understoodduetotheir relianceona

straightforwardassessment of success of failure Saarni and Harris When the

child makes the AectiveTigger unhappy he exhibits that unhappiness in his ears

and in his voice As researchers wecanobservethechilds resp onse to an unhappy

Tigger immediately and directlyWhile mo o ds often takea long time to develop and

persist for many minutes the immediacy of the AectiveTiggers resp onse to the

childs b ehavior gives the child and byextension the researchers direct feedback

Due to the vagueness of the AectiveTiggers b ehavior the cause of his emotional

Figure The state diagram for the redesigned Aective Tigger The Aective

Tigger progresses up and down in his mo o d according to the interaction of the

child When left alone he will drift toward neutral every fteen seconds

states are left op en to the users interpretation This is one of the biggest advantages

to the toybecause it allows the child to use her imagination to invent stories sur

rounding whyshe has caused the AectiveTigger to b e unhappytodayoresp ecially

happyAsthe child b ecomes increasingly familiar with the AectiveTigger she will

impart up on his b ehavior a semblance of a p ersonality She might call him silly

or easily upset or refer to him with other categorizations that were not directly

builtin

Tiggers most expressivecharacteristic is his face From the extra happyand

b ouncy Tigger to the sad humble deb ounced Tigger what changes most dramatically

is his p osture Icapitalized on this preexisting p ersonalitytrait byanimating the

large ears of the plush I was working with This manner of expression is closely

asso ciated with carto on characters in general and Tigger in sp ecic Thomas

In conjunction with other emotionally charged cues suchasadro oping head the

act of b ouncing and other situational contexts and story lines the motion of the

Aective Tiggers ears provide a comp elling visual sign of his emotional state This

is in addition to the Aective Tiggers vocal expressivity

The ears havethreepositions for eachof Tiggers three emotional displays happy

see gure neutral see gure and unhappy see gure There is a

sti wire attached to a small servomotor inside Tiggers head such that as the wire

rotates the ears movethrough the three p ositions

Twoseparate servomotors would p ermit the AectiveTigger to lo ok confused by

putting one of his ears up while the other is down The addition of a confused state

is a tangenttothethree primary mo o ds of the AectiveTigger and was determined

to b e unnecessary for this studyTheuseoftwo servos intro duced excessivepower

requirements space demands to o muchextra noise and was a ma jor part of the



cost of the toy TheAectiveTigger would havebecome confused when the child

b ounces him in a happymanner during a sad mo o d or gaveother mixed signals

A string attached to the AectiveTiggers jawispulledincoordination with the

movementofthe ears by the servomotor During unhappymoods the Aective



For more information on the cost of the AectiveTigger see the table in App endix E

Figure A neutral Tigger

Tigger closes his mouth The closed mouth augments the illusion of unhappiness

whereas the op en mouth incurs a happyexpression

Sound in general and voice in particular is a very imp ortantpieceof the inter

action b etween young children and their toys Erikson The Aective Tigger

has four vo calizations see section two with happyovertones and two with

unhappyones When exceptionally happythe AectiveTigger says a ho o ho o ho o

hoooo wheeee When happyhesays thats what Tiggers likebest Making

the Aective Tigger unhappyelicits a growl and when very unhappyhewill say

Stop that kid please S T O P STOP

The second version of The Aective Tigger included an Airtronic servo motor

housed in a sp ecially designed encasementwithin Tiggers b o dyFlexible push ro ds in

Tiggers spine controlled the ear movements A rubb er ball in Tiggers head shielded

the moving joints from impact and excessiveu



The controller is a HANDYboard Martin running IC a subset of the C

programming language designed sp ecically for the rob ot contest at MIT The



IC version R is a C compilerinterpreter for use with b oards The IC software system

was written by Randy Sargent rsargentmediamitedu and Anne Wright anarchaimitedu It

makes use of a p co de interpreter and drivers that liveonthe rob ot b oard whichwere written by

Randy Sargent Fred Martin and Anne Wright

pro cessor is a Motorola HC Chris Metcalfe provided the vo cal Tigger imitations

residentona ISD voice recordplaybackchip

Phase Detection

Muchofthis stage of the researchincludes determining what kinds of sensors to use

in the AectiveTigger and where to put them The goal was to include sensors that

would give the AectiveTiggerenough information ab out his environmenttobeable

to resp ond to the child directly and appropriatelyByobserving the child when the

AectiveTigger resp onds to a b ehavior wecan learn whichinteractions are imp ortant

during playFor example during the rst trial session the AectiveTiggers b ounce

sensor was slightly to o sensitive The result was that he was overly happythroughout

the play session A redesign of the AectiveTigger involved physically shielding the

sensor so that the child had to intentionally and forcibly b ounce the Aective Tigger

to elicit a resp onse This cyclical nature of testing the AectiveTigger in the hands of

achild then redesigning it according to our ndings was critical to the development

of a prop erly resp onsivetoy

The imp ortant considerations in the design of the AectiveTiggers input system

included how manysensors of what kind and in what places Eachsensor was

sp ecically chosen and tested for its abilitytodetect a narrowrange of b ehaviors

For example the b ounce switch can also b e activated byspanking the Aective Tigger

thus pro ducing an inappropriately happy resp onse Tocounter this particular eect a

tilt sensor was installed that overrides the b ounce detector and pro duces an unhappy

state

From observing children playing with stued animals wenoted that they some

times p ose them likea pupp et to express an emotion Sp ecicallya couple of the

children in this study pushed the AectiveTiggers head down to makeTigger lo ok

unhappy Leveraging o this observation the AectiveTigger has a b end sensor in

his neckthat measures the dro opiness of his head When the child b ends his head

down the AectiveTigger recognizes this as an unhappy motion As a result the

AectiveTigger puts his ears down and growls to augmentthe illusion of his sadness

Figure The AectiveTiggers ears are servocontrolled As the servorotates

down it pulls on the push ro d causing the AectiveTiggers ears to go up

Figure This is a commerciallyavailable resistortyp e b end sensor The strip only

bends in one direction the more it is b entthelower the resistance

Figure The b ounce detector is a small at lever switch mounted in the Aective

Tiggers rump that detectes when the AectiveTiggerisbounced

Children almost instinctively knowthatTigger is a character that likes to b ounce

Evenachild who is not familiar with the Disney Tigger character will takeone lo ok

at his rickeytickey strip ed pa jamas and understand the action of b ouncing In one

case the child b ecame so enamored with b ouncing that she b egan jumping all around

the ro om to demonstrate to me that b ouncing is what makes her happytoo

In the b ottom of the AectiveTiggers b o dy is a small at lever switchsurrounded

byaring of foam This herniapillow softens the b ouncing of the switchmaking it

slightly less sensitive When the child b ounces the AectiveTigger activating this

switch the AectiveTiggerbecomes happy If he is already unhappy see gure

say his neckisbent he will remain unhappyIfhowever he is merely neutral

b ouncing will make the AectiveTigger happyhisears will go up and he will say

Thats what Tiggers likebest If the AectiveTigger is already happyhewill

become VERYhappy and sayahoo hoo hoo hoooo wheeeee

Figure The tilt sensor is a metallic ball inside a plastic cub e As the ball rolls

around it makes contact with the metal p osts visible sticking out of the b ottom of the

sensor A measurementofwhichposts are connected provides an accurate reading of

the orientation of the cub e

Ahall eect sensor detects when Tigger is turned upsidedown Left this way for

to o long the AectiveTigger b ecomes unhappythenVERYunhappy and eventually

will turn o altogether

The length of time it takes the AectiveTigger to get to the p ointofshutting

o will vary based on his previous state see gure It takes seconds for the

AectiveTigger to progress down one mo o d level Therefore if the Aective Tigger

is happy it takes seconds of holding him upside down for him to reach the stage

where he shuts o This second parameter was chosen to allowthechildren with

short attention spans and only half an hour to conduct the exp eriment to see the

changing mo o ds of the AectiveTigger

The p ost and coil accelerometer is p ositioned b ehind the AectiveTiggers eyes to

Figure The abuse sensor is a simple p ost and coil accelerometer A sharp blow

or physical p oke as depicted here will trigger the sensor

detect abuse If the child throws Tigger against a wall or drops him on the o or this

sensor is activated and the AectiveTigger immediately b ecomes VERYunhappy

This particular p ositioning also pro duces the side eect that if a child p okes him in

the eye he b ecomes VERY unhappy These oenses are considered more severe than

bending the neck or turning upside down As a result the AectiveTiggerskips the

unhappystage and will go into shut down mo de more quickly

Astring attached to a spring in the AectiveTiggers tail is attached to a switch

As the child pulls on the tail the spring is extended eventually pro ducing enough force

to activate the switch The tail provided the opp ortunitytotry dierentreactions

When asked in a brief informal surveyvepeople thought pulling on Tiggers tail

should elicit a happy resp onse and four resp onded that it should makehim unhappy

My solution was to do b oth dep endentonthe AectiveTiggersprevious mo o d

Thus the tail pulling b ehavior amplied the current state of the AectiveTigger If

the AectiveTiggerishappyorneutral pulling on his tail makes him happier If

however he is unhappyitwill makehim more unhappy This provided a slightly

more complex resp onse and in fact of the twelvechildren in the main study only

one of them even discovered this o ddityand she didnt realize the implications

While the Tigger character in general app eals to younger children other Winnie

thePooh friends app eal to older children For example is a small quiet animal

His emotional expressions are far more subtle and suitable for the slightly more

emotionally mature child In a hyp othetical AectivePiglet doll the dualityof

pulling on his tail would b e far b etter received

Three other features that havebeen left for future work are the AectiveTiggers

recognition of a kiss or squeezing on his nose hand clap detection and a sensitivity

to the childs pulling on his whiskers

Intonation and Vo cal Emotional Expression

There are sound les

VERYHAPPY a ho ohoo hoo hoooo wheeeeee

HAPPY Thats what Tiggers likebest

NEUTRAL silent

UNHAPPY growls woraworawora

VERYUNHAPPY proactively sad Stop that kid please STOP stop

SHUT DOWN MODE silent

Voices convey emotion not just through words themselves but through

intonationrising and falling pitch variation in rhythm volume and in

tensity By seven months they app ear to connect facial expressions with

tones of voice Sigman and Capps

Surprisingly little work has b een done on infants p erception of emotion

in vocal expression What work there is suggests that discrimination of

vocally expressed emotion app ears somewhat earlier than discrimination

of facial emotions This however rather than indicating a limitation

of young infants ability suggests that they are well tuned to pickup

emotion in situations that approximate more to real life in whichemotion

is typically conveyed bytoneofvoice as well as facial expression Bremner

Piagets resorting to verbal rep ort as the indicator of internalization mayor

maynot havebeen accuratePiaget While twoand three year olds havea

large vocabularytheimitation dilemmamayalso p ersist in language acquisition

Bretherton and Beeghly note that children as young as twoyears of age use

terms that refer to mental states with references to self states as somewhat ahead of

references to the states of others This is signicantly earlier than the seven year old

that Piaget claims is just b eginning to verbalize their emotional lexicon

Phase Recognition

The most critical part of this pro ject is the recognition system within the Aective

Tigger The sensors are designed to detect very sp ecic b ehaviors but it is the ability

of the AectiveTigger to interpret and appropriately resp ond to those signals which

makethe interaction a success

The recognition system was initially implemented with exp erimentallydetermined

parameters For example when I b ounce the AectiveTigger can I trigger the sensor

Then I handed the toytothe rst sub ject She was not strong enough to trigger

the sensor so I recalibrated the system b oth in hardware and software to b e more

sensitive The next child proved strong enough and the app earance of an appropriate

resp onse from the AectiveTigger signied that the parameters were correctly set

This pro cedure was carried out with all the sensors simultaneously and iteratively

until the AectiveTigger was correctly resp onding to the intentions of the average

child

The b ehavior of the AectiveTigger is entirely software based Eachsensor pro

duces an emotional trigger either in the p ositiveornegativedirection When the

Figure The AectiveTigger has a series of input sensors the signals from which

are mediated byaninterpreter b efore they are turned into output expressions

Aective Tigger is VERYhappy and he gets turned upside down he drops down

a level to happy b efore b ecoming neutral then unhappy VERYunhappy and

nally shutting down This progression o ccurs on the order of a minute and is

stretched out bythechilds continued interaction and activation of other sensors

The interaction b etween the child and the AectiveTigger is not completely

unchecked When the AectiveTigger is already very unhappy and the child con

tinues to makehimunhappy the AectiveTiggerwill takeatimeout The Aective

Tigger shuts down for a p erio d of seconds to allowthechild a momenttocomp ose

herself He remains completely unresp onsiveduring this time This timeout as much

as the negative emotional cues is what teaches the child that this kind of b ehavior

is unacceptable In the twelvetrials the AectiveTigger only timedout once The

timeout made the child very agitated

Aproposalwas made to include external input to the AectiveTigger from a

pager or radio control For example the AectiveTigger mightbecome unhappy

and sayImhungry lets go eat when he receives a page from a parentwho just

put dinner on the table This allows someone likea parentortherapist to break

into the interaction if so needed With autistic children it is sometimes imp ortantto

break into the interaction like this in order to stop the rep etition and provide a new

stimulus Cohen and Donnellan

Description of the Child for Which the Aec

tiveTigger is Intended

The Aective Tigger is primarily targeted at three to veyear old children This is the

preop erational age at which emotional developmentis most dramatic and at which

age an aectiveeducational toymayhave the most impact The target child that

will nd the AectiveTigger engaging is one who already has a sense of emotional

recognition a limited abilitytoexpress emotions of her own and is just b eginning to

develop a sense of self that is distinct from other Sucha child is learning to play

and co op erate with other children and the AectiveTigger mayhelptoteach her

ab out empathyandcompassion

There are no sp ecic motor or language skills necessary to playwith the Aective

Tigger A child who can not recognize the expressions of the AectiveTigger may

enjoyplaying with him but she maynot knowwhy She mayeven learn all the

prop er resp onses to the AectiveTiggers various mo o ds long b efore she has either

an understanding of or a name for these feelings

In mystudyIfound that the three year olds didnt understand the interaction or

haveany resp onse b eyond the fascination with a new toyTheveyearolds seemed

already advanced b eyond the skills and intentions of the AectiveTigger but an

interesting secondary group of teen aged children found the AectiveTiggertobe

engaging From this I hyp othesize that there maybea second waveofemotional

developmentinthe teenage years that echo backtothe lessons learned the rst time

around

The most interesting reactions I found were among the four yearolds They

seemed absolutely fascinated with the abilitytomakethe AectiveTigger unhappy

As opp osed to a sign of an abusivechild it seems to b e a developmental phase

that children go through as they discover the p ower they wield over the emotions of

others

Although four year olds b ecome more adept at comforting and relieving

distress they also b ecome more adept at provoking distress byteasing

hurting and annoying other children and adults This combination of sym

pathyand spite arises as young children b egin to identify the conditions

or actions that will start or stop an emotional state in another p erson

Harris

It is interesting to think of teasing as a form of changing the emotional state of

the other Even more interesting is the notion that a child will exp eriment with the

emotions of others in this manner

Emotional Sensitivity

The manipulation of emotions has some real dangers Ekman What if the

Aective Tigger b ecame p ermanently depressed and the owner couldnt snap him

out of it Could suchanoccurrence pro duce schizophrenic or depressivebehavior

in a child What if a child found the AectiveTigger overly engaging Might

she b ecome emotionally manipulativeasa result of extended interaction with the

Aective Tigger These are a imp ortant questions whichneed further research

Chapter

The Child Trials

The child trials were designed to simultaneously evaluate the AectiveTigger and his

p otential for helping children with their understanding of emotions From these trials

the Aective Tigger was mo died when p ossible in accordance with the feedback

from the child and parent until he was tuned for the average child For example

during the rst trial the AectiveTigger was overly happyAftertheparent men

tioned that he was overly happy the threshold on the b ounce detector was mo died

to makeitless sensitive This iterativepro cess of design corrections and child tri

als proved to b e an eectivetechnique for determining the prop er thresholds for the

Aective Tiggers sensory system

Metho d

Twelvesub jects and their resp ectiveaccompanying adults were asked to play with

the Aective Tigger Initially see App endix A the child was intro duced to a prim

ing playset to help them overcome their initial shyness of the Media Lab and the

exp erimenter The parentwas distracted with release forms and a preliminary ques

tionnaire see App endix B while the exp erimenter attempted to engage the child

with the distracter toya construction set made byRokenb ok The sub jects ac

companying adult were fully informed at the outset of the exp erimentastothe nature

of the trials ab out to o ccur and what would b e exp ected of them and their child

Figure Tiggers exp erimental setup

After approximately ve minutes b oth child and parentfollowed the exp erimenter

into a separate ro om to playwith the AectiveTigger The parentwas presented

with the Aective Tigger so that they mighthelpovercome anyresidual shyness the

child mighthave This also provided the parentwithanopportunitytoexamine the

toythemselves for safetybefore giving it to the child The child and parentwere

encouraged to exp eriment with the AectiveTigger to determine howheworked As

the child gured out what b ehaviors elicited resp onses from the AectiveTigger the

exp erimenter attempted to engage the child in a story for a copyofthestoryand

the interview questions see App endix C Atthe conclusion of the exp erimenta few

followup questions were asked of b oth the adult and child One week later a follow

up phone call was made to the accompanying adult These followupphone calls

pro duced no signicantchange in attitude or opinion on b ehalf of the child or adult

Sub jects

To solicit the participation of children p osters were hung outside of the MIT pre

scho ols and near the MIT Medical Center p ediatrics oce Additionallyemail an

nouncements were circulated and the ma jorityofchildren who participated in this

study heard ab out it through word of mouth Two sub jects were studied in California

and the rest at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge Massachusetts The ma jorityof

accompanying parents were the childs mother but there were several other relations

as well I had hop ed to attract at least one father to the studybut only managed

to get twoboysub jects instead of the six I had intended Finally the children who

were attracted to this study all had extensiveprior exp osure to the Disney Tigger

character

Data Quantication Pro cedure

All of the sub jects freely consented to having their session videotap ed Atthe conclu



sion of the exp erimental trials an indep endentobserver was asked to rank eachchild

in nine sp ecic categories see App endix C based on a combination of the childs

behavior in the video and the written resp onses to the questionnaires The observer

did not know the hyp othesized relationships b etween anyofthecategories but may

haveinferred a correlation on her own This indep endentassessmentprovided a

quantication of eachchilds b ehavior

Summary of Results and Discussion from the

Child Trials

The null hyp othesis was that wewould nd no correlation b etween either age pres

ence of siblings or shyness to the displayofmimicryempathyemotional restraint

understanding of sense of other or overall assessmentofemotional intelligence

The results see App endix D table D pro duced something quite dierent There

was a distinct correlation of age with everything except mimicry and empathy see

gures and Additionallythe correlation of siblings with recogni

tion a sense of other and their general assessmentofemotional intelligence was an



Again manythanks to Linda Kiley for her time and attention

unexp ected result that suggests that having siblings may enhance the emotional de

velopmentofa child see section The Child The results also demonstrated that

shyness was not muchofanobstacle to emotional development correlating inversely

with emotional restraint but not impacting other areas under measurement

Most of the children in the main study were delighted to playwith the Aective

Tigger Only twoofthetwelvechildren who participated in the main study showed

little to no interest in the AectiveTigger It was the twoboys who incidentally

came to the lab together who were far more intrigued bymydistracter toy than by

the Aective Tigger The other nine children in the main study were girls and it was

they who seemed excited to playwith the AectiveTigger With sucha small sample

set of b oys no conclusions regarding gender can b e made from this observation

On three of the trials in the main studythechild and parentdidntbelieve that

the Aective Tigger was reactiveenough In every case they understo o d that the

Aective Tigger was resp onding to the predetermined cues but often commented

that his voice was not loud enough and his ears did not move enough In general

though they all understo o d the emotional expression the AectiveTiggerwas trying

to conveyand in no case did they confuse sadness for happiness or vice versa Even

when the child could not understand the words the AectiveTiggerwas sp eaking she

nonetheless discerned the emotional contentof the AectiveTiggers vocalizations

As muchasthe children liked playing with the AectiveTigger the adults also

seemed impressed by the AectiveTigger They understo o d the educational value of

the toyandvo calized opinions that they regarded these intentions very highlyIn

some situations the parentwas even more excited ab out the toy than the child One

parentexpressed her negativitytowards the AectiveTigger but made it clear that

the main problem in her eyes was a mismatchinthe age of her child to the aims

of the Aective Tigger Fiveoftheaccompanying adults voiced concerns ab out all

these new rob otic toys and howtheyonlykeep the interest of their child for a very

short time For example one mother complained ab out howboring it is to squeeze

the pawofatoytohear it playa song These concerns app eared to b e alleviated

after the parentrealized that the AectiveTigger is sp ecically designed to teach

their child ab out feelings This oers the child a more complex interaction than many

similar computertoys on the shelf to day

Error Analysis

As with anybehavioral studythe risk of error intro duction is high Some p otential

sources of error could come from the exp erimenter or accompanying adults coach

ing the sub ject the failure of the AectiveTiggers hardware the inattention of

the child to the AectiveTigger and the inaccurate assessmentofthechild bythe

indep endentobserver

In fact manyof the trials were plagued with problems As mentioned previously

the Aective Tiggers voice was to o soft for the child to makeoutwhat he was saying

In twoofthe trials the exp erimenter had to tell the child what he was saying b efore

they could understand it Additionallyhis ears moved in a very subtle manner which

was often hard to see amidst the b ouncing and thrashing ab out Four of the twelve

children failed to notice that his ears were moving at all In one case the hardware

failed altogether and the AectiveTigger had no resp onses however this didnt seem

to b other the child and she was quite happytodemonstrate what he should lo ok like

when he is happyorsadThetwoboys liked the distracter toysomuchthey refused

to playwith the Aective Tigger for more than a few moments each

In general future work should provide a more standardized setting for the exp er

iments to o ccur and the toyshould function exactly the same for eachchild rather

than the approach here of mo difying it slightly after each trial

Chapter

Evaluation

The evaluation of the AectiveTigger pro ject is twofold First do es the toy qualify

as emotionally reactive that is do es he recognize emotionally laden cues from the

playmate and resp ond to the playmate with a recognizable expression of an emotion

The assessmentofthe AectiveTiggertoy comes from the childs reaction to him

The childs reaction leads into the second comp onentof the evaluation of the Aective

Tigger pro ject This second comp onentisanassessmentof the teaching abilityof

the Aective Tigger Can the child learn to recognize his expressions as a p ositiveor

negative reaction to her b ehavior Can she generalize this knowledge to other p eople

is she demonstrating signs of a developing emotional intelligence These questions

are evaluated byandindep endentobserver who rated the p erceived level of emotional

developmentofeachchild

The Plush

The pro cess of constructing an emotionally reactive stued animal has proven itself to

be helpful in furthering our understanding of the developmentofsocialcommunication

in children The use of a computer controlled toywas a natural and logical means for

beginning to lo ok at childpro ong computer interfaces while maintaining the sense

of child orientedness inherentina toy

The Aective Tigger toyoverall was well received A few p eople said they didnt

likethetoy after theyd seen it or didnt think their children would wanttoplay

with it but the overwhelming resp onse was p ositive Of all the p eople who have seen

and played with the AectiveTigger well over twothirds said either it was a good

toyoratleast the idea of an emotionally reactivetoywas promising

The interface issues were addressed individually and in the end provided the

combined eect of a passivestued animal whichwas the initial goal Such issues as

size character expressivefeatures numberofmoods and the design of the sensory

system were resolved to the p oint that they did not intrude on the childcomputer

interaction Other issues likeweight and degree of expressivity still need improve

ment

The biggest factor in determining if the AectiveTigger was successfully con

structed was the question do es the child recognize the expressions of the Aective

Tigger The answer to this question lies in the b ehaviors expressed by the child

Is she mimicking his expressions or is she able to vo calize her recognition of his

expressions

As discussed previously the p erception and even vo calization of an emotion can

emerge long b efore the abilitytointernalize this information to guide ones actions

Piaget This abilityofyoung children to say what they dont mean and to

vocalize as well as imitate what they dont understand is the largest obstacle to this

studyThe emergence of mimicry as early as months see section Emotional

recognition in the very young infantand the following section on Emotional expression

in the infant suggests that it is not in itself a reliable measure of a childs recognition

of an expression However combining vocalization with mimicrywebegin to b e able

to put more faith in the childs abilityto recognize the emotion b eing displayed

The criterion for the indep endentassessmentofthechilds abilityto recognize the

AectiveTiggers expressions included demonstrations of empathy and vo calizations

in addition to mimicry

There was a signicantcorrelation of age with p erceived recognition and an inter

esting correlation b etween the children who havesiblings and increased p erformance

with emotional recognition The correlation of age with recognition was exp ected

Figure The abilityofthe child to demonstrate recognition of the expressions of

the AectiveTigger correlated with the age of the child

and it veries that the AectiveTigger was able to pro ject an emotion whichwas

recognizable to the child Additionallythe parents often commented on the expres

sions of the AectiveTiggerinways that demonstrated that they could identify the

emotion b eing conveyed in b oth his p osture and voice

The second question regarding the success of the Aective Tigger was do es the

Aective Tigger make clear the causal relationship b etween the actions of the child

and his expressions This was the AectiveTiggers greatest failing Manyofthe

parents commentedthat his expressions were not dramatic enough Addition

ally of the parents and most of the other p eople who sawandplayed with the

Aective Tigger said that his voice needed to b e louder These twofactors were a

huge detrimentto the AectiveTiggers abilityto create the illusion of reactivity

Overall the Aective Tigger as a toywas a partial success With more time and

resources the obstacles of weight voice loudness and the subtletyofhis expressions

could all b e overcome The fact that of the children sp ontaneously recognized

his expressions happyvs sad despite these failings is very encouraging

The Child

The big question in the human part of the AectiveTigger pro ject is could an

emotionally reactivetoyaugmentemotionaldevelopment The scop e of this study

did not p ermit observation of the children over multiple playsessions but it b egins

to scratchthe surface What weknow from previous work is that a child with a

well develop ed sense of other who exhibits emotional restraintand demonstrates

empathycanbe said tohavea well develop ed emotional intelligence These three

criterion are evaluated for eachchild in the childtrials to assess the age at which

each developmental step o ccurs

This study corrob orates existing evidence that children develop a sense of other

during the third year of life see App endix D table D Twoout of the three

threeyearolds did not haveawell develop ed sense of other as opp osed to all of the

older children who distinctly did understand the concept of other Additionally

none of the younger children had an understanding of the existence of other The

demonstration of a sense of other could include sharing or other signs that the child

is no longer ego centric More children need to b e evaluated to pro duce denitive

results however it can b e suggested from this data that the sense of other develops

very early in the third year for an average child

The demonstration of emotional restraintistheonefactorthatachild do es not

fake It is our most accessible means for assessing emotional development This

research helps to conrm the developmentofemotional restraintduring the b eginning

of the fourth year The data see App endix D table D supp orts a correlation

between emotional restraintand age see gure Twoofthevefouryearolds

failed to demonstrate emotional restraint It is interesting to note that these two

children exhibited a high degree of emotional intelligence despite their seeming lack

of emotional restraintsee gure This signals the age of transition at whichthe

Figure The sense of other seemed to develop early in the third year Shyness on

the other hand do es not correlate suggesting that it has little eect on the emotional

developmentofa child

Figure Both emotional restraintand the general assessmentof emotional devel

opmentcorrelate with age

child is on the verge of acquiring emotional restraint The premature demonstration

of emotional intelligence maybeyet another instance of mimicrywhere the child

fakes the b ehavior b efore she internalizes it

The second cue to the level of emotional developmentofachild is the demon

stration of empathyDemonstrating empathymeansthe child understands what to

do to makethe AectiveTiggerhappy or unhappy As mentioned previously this

do es not require the child to understand the causal relationship b etween her actions

and his resp onses The hyp othesis was that a child who comforts the Aective Tig

ger is displaying the highest form of emotional intelligence Surprisingly enough the

data collected on empathysee App endix D table D did not correlate well with

anything see gure Perhaps the paradigm of displaying empathytoa stued

animal is not correct for this age group

This study also suggests that shyness maynotbea hindrance to the emotional de

Figure Empathy failed to correlate with age This suggests that either these

children were to o young or the paradigm of empathizing with a stued animal is

inappropriate for this age group

velopmental pro cess The only thing shyness correlated with was emotional restraint

see App endix D table D Of course a child who is shy will exhibit few emotional

outbursts More imp ortantlythe lackofcorrelation in other areas is what suggests

that shyness has little to no adverse impact on the emotional developmentofa child

Conclusion

In general the conclusions from the AectiveTigger pro ject are promising The toy

itself qualies as an emotionally reactiveinstrument Atthevery least the Aective

Tigger captures the interest of the children of the intended age and at most might

be able to augmenttheir emotional development Tosummarize the three year olds

in general dont get it They dont havethe emotional restraint and are only just

beginning to develop the sense of other necessary to understand this toyThe four

year olds in my observation are learning the most from the AectiveTigger As such

they sp end their time mostly hurting him The veyear olds as a group understo o d

the emotional resp onses of the AectiveTigger They gured out what he do es and

whyfaster than I could have demonstrated it to them

Could the AectiveTigger assist the developmentofemotional intelligence within

the child It is not clear What is apparentisthatheprovides the child with a

safe playspace to explore and exp erimentwith feelings and b ehavior The Aective

Tigger lets the child makesocial mistakes yell to o loudly or playtooroughlywithout

the p ermanence or severityofa lost friend or upset parent There are no instructions

there is no rightorwrong waytoplaywith the AectiveTigger there are only actions

and consequences

App endix A

Lab oratory Pro cedures

ALWAYS USE PEN

Welcome

Show the guardian and child into the quiet ro om

Set up the play set for the child to entertain himherself with

Consent forms

Read and explain consent forms to the guardian

Extra consent forms are in mydesk Double checkthatitsays MIT on the top

If you havetowriteanew number in the corner pickone that is not used

Remember to mention the followup phone call

Stress to the guardian that neither they nor their child is b eing evaluated

Nothing they or their child do es is wrong

Preliminary questions

Remember to WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING

Set up camera

Start lming then call in the child

Hand the Tigger to the parent

Let the parent and child playwithTigger for at least minutes

Story line

Ask the parenttostand b ehind you while you engage the child with the story

Allowthe parenttointervene but continue to reengage the child when p ossible

Debrief

Leavethe camera rolling for the debrieng but continue to write everything down

Goodbye

Thank them and paythem

Be courteous even if it didnt go well

App endix B

The Release Forms for the

Aective Tigger Trials

B ConsentForm for the MIT community for

the AectiveTigger pro ject

Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technologyinthe group of Aective

Computing are conducting a study to evaluate a prototyp e toy that was designed to

resp ond to howyour child interacts with it Your and your childs participation in

the following exp erimentare completely voluntaryEitherofyou are free to withdraw

this consentatanytimefor any reason and to request that any data collected b e

destroyed If at any time either of you feel uncomfortable or unsure that you wish

your results to b e part of the exp eriment you maydiscontinue your participation

with no rep ercussions

By participating in this studyyou will receive in monetary comp ensation for

your and your childs participation The results of this study mayresultina bet

ter understanding of new metho ds for interaction b etween computers and children

Participation in this study presents minimal risk to your child Your child maybe

come confused during their participation as they playwitha toythat is unfamiliar

to them and whichmayresp ond to your child in unexp ected ways However the

level of this confusion should not exceed anything that they would haveduring an

everyday encounter with a new toy This is a twoparttime commitmentofyour

and your childs time The session should last less than an hour In one week there

will b e a followupphone interview of approximately veminutes in length In a few

minutes you will b egin participating in an exp eriment that will include the following

A Answering a few preliminary questions

B Intro duction to a new kind of toy

C Performing a series of playful tasks with this new toy

D Sharing your opinion of the toy

These tasks are designed to exp ose the AectiveTiggers reaction to dierent

emotional situations They are exp ected to elicit resp onses and feelings within your

child Any and all resp onses are normal If at anytime either of you are uncom

fortable either physicallyorwith what you or your child are b eing asked to do or

howtheAective Tigger is resp onding you are free to ask that the exp erimentbe

susp ended

Anyresp onses that are collected during this exp erimentwill b e completely anony

mous From this p ointforward your data will b e referred to bytheID number that

app ears on the upp er rightcorner of thispaper

If you haveany questions at anypointduringtheexp eriment the exp erimenter

will gladly answer them

Please read the following and sign on the lines b elow

Ithe undersigned haveread and understo o d the explanations of the following

research pro ject and voluntarily consenttomyandmychilds participation in it

Iunderstand that all resp onses will remain condential and that I mayterminate

participation at anytime In the unlikely eventofphysical injury resulting from

participation in this research I understand that medical treatment will b e available

from the MIT Medical Department including rst aid treatmentand followup care

as needed and that myinsurance carrier maybebilled for the cost of such treatment

However no comp ensation can b e provided for medical care apart from the foregoing

Ifurther understand that making suchmedical treatmentavailable or providing it

do es not imply that suchinjuryistheinvestigators fault I also understand that by

my participation in this study I am not waiving anyofmy legal rights

Iunderstand that if I exp erience anyill eects either mentally or physically p ost

exp erimentation I will contact the exp erimentcoordinator Dana Kirsch

or

Iunderstand that I may also contact the Chairman of the Committee on the Use

of Humans of Exp erimental Sub jects MIT if I feel I or mychild has

been treated unfairly as a sub ject

B Consent Form for the California Commu

nity for the AectiveTigger pro ject

The consentform for the California communitywas almost identical to the one ab ove

for the MIT communityThey could not receivecomp ensation but were informed that

Sub jects solicited from the MIT community receive comp ensation Additionally

since the medical center was not available to them the following mo dication to the

ab oveconsent form was made In the unlikely eventofphysical injury resulting from

participation in this research I understand that no comp ensation can b e provided for

medical care I further understand that this do es not imply that suchinjury is the

investigators fault

B Video Tap e Consent

Videotap es will b e collected of myandmychilds participation This data will b e

used for exp erimental purp oses onlyand after the data collection is over they will

be permanently stored in a private archive In the future they will only b e viewed or

used for exp erimental purp oses Atanytime during or after the exp erimentyou may

request that the tap es of you and your child b e destroyed This consentisentirely

separate from your consenttoparticipate in the exp eriment and maybe withdrawn

at anytime in the future Please sign on the lines b elowtogivespecial p ermission

for the videotaping of myandmychilds participation

To giveyour p ermission to haveanexcerpt from the videotap e shown for researchand

teaching purp ose please sign b elow Please note that if you do not wish to giveyour

permission for this wewould still likeyour participation in the study for analysis

purp oses onlyIhave read and understo o d the ab oveand agree to haveanexcerpt

from myvideotap ed interaction shown for educational purp oses

App endix C

Do cuments for the Aective

Tigger Child Trials

C The Story Line for the AectiveTigger

This orange sp ot is Tiggers house Can you put Tigger in his house

Lets pretend that pink sp ot is Tiggers friend Piglets house Do you knowwho Piglet

is Can you showmehow happyTigger is to go visit Piglet at Piglets house

Can you tell me a story ab out howhappy Tigger is Whyishesohappytogovisit

Piglet What do Tiggers do when they are happy What happ ens when you pull his

tail

Nowitislate The sun has gone down And it is time for Tigger to go home But

Tigger do es not wanttoleave Piglets house Can you showmehowa sad Tigger go es

home Tigger is very sad isnt he What other kinds of things make Tigger sad

Can you showmewhat a sad Tigger lo oks like What happ ens when you pull his tail

What would you do to makeTiggerhappyagainCanyou tell Tigger a story that

will make him happy Can you showmewhatahappyTiggerlooks like

C Preliminary Questions for the Aective Tig

ger Child Trials

The fol lowing questionnaire was oral ly administeredto the accompanying adult with

each child beforetheAective Tigger was introduced The results from al l trials are

summarizedinitalics directly beneath each question The number of responses does

not sum to twelve because presumably the accompanying adult did not know the answer

or did not wish to respond for some other reason

Questions for accompanying adult

The following few questions are to help me knowalittle more ab out your child I

will b e giving you b oth a new kind of toyandI would liketo knowhowyou b elieve

your child will resp ond to the toy There are no rightor wrong answers If you do

not knowor are not comfortable answering anyofthe questions feel free to tell me

to skip to the next Finallydonotworry if your child do es not b ehave the wayyou

exp ected himher to this is very natural and do es not reect p o orly on you in anyway

Howfamiliar is your child with the Disney Winnie the Pooh characters

very familiar knows them

Has heshe seen anyof the movies

yes have seen the videos

Do es heshe watchthe Saturday morning carto on

yes in smal l amounts no

Haveyou read the b o oks to himher

yes a little no

Do es your child know and liketheTigger character

yes

Do es your child own any Tigger toys

yes no

Howdoesyour child resp ond to new places

ne shy for the rst few minutes intel lectual curious

Would you saythatyour child is timid ab out exploring new environments

yes somewhat just a little at rst not overly so no

Do es your child enjoyplaying with new toys

yes no

What is your childs favorite toycurrently

a felt princess mermaids racecars WinniethePooh Barbie Arthur

blocks LEGO construction airplanes trains a Teddy bear a baby dol l a kan

garoo

Howdoesyour child likestued animals as compared to other toys

loves likes

Howdoyou anticipate your child will react when I giveyou the Tigger

intrigued excitedtosee Tigger ne

Do you think heshe will b e shyabout playing with this new Tigger

medium maybe depends no

Howdoyou think your child will resp ond to myquestions for himher Do you think

heshe will co op erate with me

yes after she gets to know you no she is tooshy

C Debrieng the AectiveTigger trial

The fol lowing questionnairewasoral ly administeredtoboth the child and their ac

companying adult at the end of the trial The results from al l trials aresummarized

in italics directly beneath each question The number of responses does not sum to

twelve because presumably the child or accompanying adult did not know the answer

or did not wish to respond for some other reason

To the child

Did you likeplaying with this Tigger

yes no

Did Tigger scare you

no

What was your favorite thing that Tigger did

he got happy bouncing got sad clapped hands

What was your favorite thing that Tigger said

grow led happy he is sad

Do es this Tigger liketobounce

yes

What do es this Tigger do when you b ounce him

he likes it he gets happy

Do es this Tigger likeitwhen you pull his tail

yes I dont want to

What do es he do when you pull his tail

talked got happy

Do you likeitbetter when Tigger is happyor sad

happy sad

Howcanyou make Tigger sad

poke him in the eye turn him upside down

What should you do when Tigger is sad

pul l his tail give him a hug

What happ ens when you pull his tail if he is already sad

he goes on the ceiling

What should you do to makeTigger happyagainWhat can you do for Tigger to

become happy

bounce him no

To the adult

Howwell do you think your child did

typical short attention span moreshygood

Did heshe do anything that you didnt exp ect

no little nervous not wish to play the story tel ling was the most exciting

Was heshe more or less shy than usual

more normal only a little unsure less

What was your impression of the toy

too subtle I wouldnt buy it for a younger child not sure what it was doing nice

neat I would buy one

Do you think Tigger is resp onding to your child

its not clear no yes

Do you think your child could learn anything from a toylike this

not at this age cant tel l if it had morereactions if we had moretime

What would you liketoseeincluded in the next mo del Tigger

louder voice more things whiskers

Do you think your child will remember Tigger in a week

yes hardtosay

C The FollowupPhone call

The fol lowing questionnairewasoral ly administered over the phone to the accompa

nying adult approximately one week after the session The results from al l trials are

summarizedinitalics directly beneath each question The number of responses does

not sum to twelve because presumably the accompanying adult did not know the answer

or did not wish to respond

Do you think your child rememb ers Tigger

yes hasnt mentioned it

Do you think your child would playwithaTigger like that

yes pretend play only for a little while no

Do you still think Tigger could teachyour child something What is it Whydoyou

think that is imp ortanttolearn

imagination play not into stuedanimals no

Do you think a toylikeTigger should b e used in scho ols

yes to learn about feelings for younger children no

Has your opinion of Tigger changed at all

it is a goodidea the ears weretoosubtle but otherwise good toopassive

no

App endix D

Quantied Results

The fol lowing questionnairewas given to an independent observer This observer was

instructedtoview the videotapes and read the written surveys for each child The

results of this assessment of each child were assignedanumber these numbers appear

interspersed throughout the questionnaire highlightedinitalics

D The Indep endent Data Collection Survey

Howoldwas the child and what gender

circle one

Is this child familiar with Tigger

very familiar not at all

Is this child outgoing or shy

very outgoingvery shy

Do es this child haveany siblings

yes denitely I dont know none

Did the child recognize Tiggers expressions

yes denitely unclear no denitely not

Did the child exhibit any mimicry of Tiggers emotions smile or frown

HappySad Bouncing no nothing

Plus for no nothing and an additional point for each emotion Total of

Did the child demonstrate caring or concern for Tigger when he was sad add

Could the child vo calize what to do to make him happyagain

demonstrated vocalized no empathydisplayed

Grand total including point from above is

Did the child demonstrate an understand of or awareness of other

yes unclear no

Did the child demonstrate emotional restraint Could the child control outbursts

yes unclear no

Howwould you characterize this childs emotional developmentunderstanding of

emotions within himherself AND others in general

well develop ed medium very immature

Age Shyness Siblings Recognition Mimicry

Pearson

Pearson

Pearson

Table D Age siblings and shyness vs mimicry and recognition

The data The zeros in the data sets signify that the evaluator was not able to as

signavalue this maybedue to vagueness in the childs resp onse technical diculties

with the video camera or other unforeseen factors demonstrated signicant correla

tions b etween age and recognition This was to b e exp ected What was not exp ected

was the b etter than chance correlation of siblings and shyness to recognition What

is p ossibly the most interesting is the distinct lackofcorrelation with mimicry This

result suggests that Piagets hyp othesis that children who havebecome procientat

imitation b egin to imitate internallymayoccur well b efore the third year of age A

larger sample set would b e b etter able to conrm or deny suchcorrelations

Age Shyness Siblings Sense of other

Pearson

Pearson

Pearson

Table D Age siblings and shyness vs sense of other

The highly signicant result from this data is the apparentcorrelation b etween

b oth age and a sense of other whichistobeexp ected and the presence of siblings

to the developmentofasense of other This is a very interesting result and one

that b egs for further study

Age Shyness Siblings Empathy Emotional restraint assessmentofEI

Pearson

Pearson

Pearson

Table D Age siblings and shyness vs emotional restraint empathyand general

assessmentof emotional intelligence

This nal blo ckof data clearly demonstrates the correlation b etween age and p er

ceived emotional intelligence This correlation was exp ected and as suchprovides

supp ort to the validityoftheother measures in the AectiveTigger pro ject Inter

estinglythere is also a signicant correlation b etween having siblings and emotional

intelligence As mentioned b efore this controversial issue distinctly needs further

studyThe correlation b etween age and emotional restraintsuggest that this is one

of the last factors to develop within the child and p erhaps a study including year

olds would show more correlation Finallythere is an inverse correlation b etween

shyness and emotional restraint This to o is to b e exp ected in that the more shythe

child app ears the less likely she is to exhibit extreme emotional reactions Overall the

lackofshyness correlation demonstrates that it is not detrimental to the development

of a child

App endix E

Cost Estimate for the Aective

Tigger Toy

The AectiveTiggertoywas constructed using available to ols and supplies The

table b elowisa pro jection of what it would cost to build a second unit The cost of

the HANDYboard could b e reduced byanorder of magnitude if one were to custom

build these controller circuits The cost of the HANDYboard includes the price of

the Lithium battery packandrecharging circuitry roughly

Part Cost in

HANDYboard

Servo

Plush

Bend sensor

Tilt sensor

Switches

Accelerometer

Push ro ds

Misc

Total

Table E A Pro jection of the Cost to Build the AectiveTigger

App endix F

Ab out the Author

I used to b e a comp etitivegure skater I also used to loveto ride mymountain bike

My life changed when I was diagnosed with cancer in the Fall of The surgery

on myhip was a complete success though the recovery was long and arduous During

the spring and summer of I b ecame involved in several new activities as I made

progress in myrecovery

Ivebeen something of an amateur Architect for as long as I can remember Iam

a partner in the KirschShepherd construction corp oration whichbuildsabout one

custom home p er year in the Palo Alto area of California During the earliest parts

of myrecovery I had p eople bring me library b o oks on Italian Villas and I immersed

myself in the works of the great Italian Rennasaince artists and Architects including

Vignola Michaelangelo and Palladio From this study I havedrawn up a full set of

o or plans for a three story Italian Villa to b e constructed in the cityofLos Altos

Hills

As mymobilityincreased I decided to takea couple of courses at Stanford I

suered from one nal hospitalization but still managed to attend most lectures as

Iwas walking around with my cane at this p oint By the end of the summer I was

working full time for the construction corp oration and part time with a movie crew

sho oting a short lm in mm

Iamvery proud to have completed the twocourses and even more excited at the

prosp ect of graduating with mySM on time despite mylosing half a year to illness

F Publications

The SIT Bo oks Using Electromagnetic Fields for Data Transmission

CHI Late Breaking Pittsburgh

The Sentic Mouse Developing a to ol for Measuring Emotional Valence

Bachelors Thesis MIT DepartmentofBrain and CognitiveSciences and Program

in Media Arts and Sciences May

The Lo cust Swarm An Environmentallyp owered Networkless Lo cation and Mes

saging System

T Starner D Kirsch and S Assefa

International Symposium on Wearable Computing

Augmented Reality through Wearable Computing

T Starner S Mann B Rho des J Levine J HealeyD Kirsch

PresenceSpecial Issue on AugmentedReality

Human Pattern Recognition A Study of the Relationship Between Rotation and Re

action Time in a Head Mounted Display

D Kirsch M Figueroa MIT Departmentof Brain and CognitiveSciences

F Awards

Excellence in Science and Technology Award XeroxPARC

Outstanding leadership award

Civil Air Patrol California wing NCO of the Year

Awarded highest recognition of leadership skills in the State of California

Attendance at an intensivemilitary leadership scho ol

Noncommissioned ocers Academy

Selected as one of students from a p o ol of to attend this California state

event

Attendance at an intensivemilitary leadership scho ol

Pararescue Orientation Course

Selected as one of students from throughout the US to attend this national

event

Outstanding leadership award

Noncommissioned Ocers scho ol intensive seminar

Awarded b est overall leader Honor Cadet and b est presentation in class of

students

Outstanding leadership award Civil Air Patrol Encampment

Awarded b est overall leader Honor Cadet in class of students

F Other

Iama licensed pilot qualied to y single engine xedwing land based aircraft

Iamalso a licensed NAUI scuba diver

Biblio graphy

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Press New York

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Harvard University Press Cambridge MA

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