Abstract expressions of affect

What form should happiness take? And how is disgust shaped? This research investigates how synthetic affective expressions can be designed with minimal reference to the human body. The authors propose that the recognition and attribution of affect expression can be triggered by appropriately presenting the bare essentials used in the mental processes that mediate the recognition and attribution of affect. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in the fact that it is based on mental processes involved in the recognition of affect, independent of the configuration of the human body and face. The approach is grounded in (a) research on the role of abstraction in perception, (b) the elementary processes and features relevant to visual emotion recognition and emotion attribution, and (c) how such features can be used (and combined) to generate a synthetic emotion expression. To further develop the argument for this approach they present a pilot study that shows the feasibility of combining affective features independently of the human configuration by using abstraction to create consistent emotional attributions. Finally, the authors discuss the potential implications of their approach for the design of affective robots. The developed design approach promises a maximization of freedom to integrate intuitively understandable affective expressions with other morphological design factors a technology may require, providing synthetic affective expressions that suit the inherently artificial and applied nature of affective technology

Empathy and Dyspathy with Androids: Philosophical, Fictional, and (Neuro)Psychological Perspectives

The fact that we develop feelings towards androids, i.e., objects with a humanlike appearance, has fascinated people since ancient times. However, as a short survey of the topic in history, science fiction literature and film shows, our emotional reactions towards them are ambivalent. On the one hand, we can develop feelings of empathy almost as we do with real human beings; on the other hand, we feel repulsion or dyspathy when those creatures show a very high degree of human likeness. Recently, Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori coined the term “uncanny valley” to refer to this effect. The aim of this essay is, first, to give an explanation as to why we feel empathy towards androids although we know that they do not have feelings themselves. This presupposes a perception-based concept of empathy which is going to be developed on the basis of some of Theodor Lipps’ ideas. The second question to be answered is why empathy with androids turns into dyspathy when they become very humanlike. As I will argue, this is due to a particular kind of interference between perception and the imagination when confronted with very humanlike objects. This makes androids quite special objects right at the divide between humans and non-humans. They are non-human, but we feel ill at ease when treating them as mere objects

The Intense World Theory – A Unifying Theory of the Neurobiology of Autism

Autism covers a wide spectrum of disorders for which there are many views, hypotheses and theories. Here we propose a unifying theory of autism, the Intense World Theory. The proposed neuropathology is hyper-functioning of local neural microcircuits, best characterized by hyper-reactivity and hyper-plasticity. Such hyper-functional microcircuits are speculated to become autonomous and memory trapped leading to the core cognitive consequences of hyper-perception, hyper-attention, hyper-memory and hyper-emotionality. The theory is centered on the neocortex and the amygdala, but could potentially be applied to all brain regions. The severity on each axis depends on the severity of the molecular syndrome expressed in different brain regions, which could uniquely shape the repertoire of symptoms of an autistic child. The progression of the disorder is proposed to be driven by overly strong reactions to experiences that drive the brain to a hyper-preference and overly selective state, which becomes more extreme with each new experience and may be particularly accelerated by emotionally charged experiences and trauma. This may lead to obsessively detailed information processing of fragments of the world and an involuntarily and systematic decoupling of the autist from what becomes a painfully intense world. The autistic is proposed to become trapped in a limited, but highly secure internal world with minimal extremes and surprises. We present the key studies that support this theory of autism, show how this theory can better explain past findings, and how it could resolve apparently conflicting data and interpretations. The theory also makes further predictions from the molecular to the behavioral levels, provides a treatment strategy and presents its own falsifying hypothesis

In and out of Wonderland: a criti/chromatic stroll across postdigital culture

The contemporary info-proliferation is taking the ideal of a solid technological rationalism to its extreme point: the depletion of all bodies into ’informational cuts’, orderable bits and pieces of data fabric. The present contribution will discuss this process of datafication, trying to avoid any polarization along the ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ dualism, and any consequent excess of enthusiasm or critique. For this purpose, the essay will take the form of a stroll across post-digital culture, alternatively under the effects of a ‘red and a blue pill’ as the two main points of view already exemplified, in 1999, by Morpheus in the famous sci-fi movie The Matrix. To these two points of view, respectively identifiable as digital critique (going down the deep rabbit hole, and seeing that computers are playing today a leading role in what Gilles Deleuze and Fèlix Guattari have called ’capitalist schizophrenia’), or digital potential (remaining in a world of numeric dreams, a world populated not only by humans but also by bots, autonomous computer programs that are becoming increasingly able not only to post, but also to understand content and interact with people and, most importantly, to take aesth/ethical decisions), a yellow one will be added, which can be recognized as that of ‘hacker culture’, at the same time suggesting that, instead of a dialectical contraposition between two different perceptual and cognitive modalities, post-digital culture can be more easily discussed through a multiplication of possible perspective

Masculine Foes, Feminist Woes: A Response to Down Girl

In her book, Down Girl, Manne proposes to uncover the “logic” of misogyny, bringing clarity to a notion that she describes as both “loaded” and simultaneously “politically marginal.” Manne is aware that full insight into the “logic” of misogyny will require not just a “what” but a “why.” Though Manne finds herself largely devoted to the former task, the latter is in the not-too-distant periphery. Manne proposes to understand misogyny, as a general framework, in terms of what it does to women. Misogyny, she writes, is a system that polices and enforces the patriarchal social order (33). That’s the “what.” As for the “why,” Manne suggests that misogyny is what women experience because they fail to live up to the moral standards set out for women by that social order. I find Manne’s analysis insightful, interesting, and well argued. And yet, I find her account incomplete. While I remain fully convinced by her analysis of what misogyny is, I am less persuaded by her analysis of why misogyny is. For a full analysis of the “logic” of misogyny, one needs to understand how the patriarchy manifests in men an interest in participating in its enforcement. Or so I hope to motivate here. I aim to draw a line from the patriarchy to toxic masculinity to misogyny so that we have a clearer picture as to why men are invested in this system. I thus hope to offer here an analysis that is underdeveloped in Manne’s book, but is equally worthy of attention if we want fully to understand the complex machinations underlying misogyny

On the brainstem origin of autism : disruption to movements of the primary self

This paper examines evidence for a disorder of the intrinsic motive processes of the purposeful self in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which leads to weakening of shared experience in early childhood. Changed motor and affective regulations that identify autism are traced to faults in neurogenesis in the core brainstem systems of the fetus. These fundamental systems have evolved to serve development of sensory guidance for motor activity and affective regulation of projects of thought and action, including communication of intentions and feelings with other human selves. Affective neuroscience describes subcortical organs in mammals that are responsible for the coherence of a primary conscious self-as-agent, with emotions that communicate feelings for selective sociability with other individuals. In humans this affective consciousness is adapted as the foundation for active engagement of an infant with a world of objects and people by expressions under the control of shared rhythms of an ‘intrinsic motive pulse’. We give primary importance to the disorder in autism of the accuracy of timing in this resonant central nervous system, responsible for coordination of movement with companions. We relate this understanding of the disorder to problems in the monitoring of prospective regulation of actions of the conscious Self by a body-related affective valence, which affects the arousal of personal satisfaction of purposes or anxiety at their failure, and engagement in affectionate or antagonistic relations. This leads to evaluation of participation in movements with shared feelings for therapy and teaching to helping the socio-emotional development and learning of children with autism, as well as advice for lifetime care. In autism, the essential embodiment of early childhood experience for growth of knowledge, skill and collaborative social understanding appears weakened by a sensorimotor deficit in motivation and its affective control. This has life-long developmental consequences, affecting the intersubjective responses of family, and then cooperative attentions of companions and teachers in the community. Mis-coordination of movements leads to frustration, distress, and anxiety, creating social withdrawal and avoidance, or over-compensations expressed as increased arousal and hyper-activity. Indeed, we propose that disabilities in cognitive intelligence and language are secondary to weakness in prospective control of movements with affective appraisal of anticipated experiences. We identify the origin of these symptoms in disorders of brainstem mechanisms that develop in the late embryo stage and that are essential for motor and affective regulations, as well as autonomic processing. In particular, data indicate an anatomical and functional disruption of the inferior olive, associated with control of motor timing by the cerebellum, and abnormal development of the neighbouring nucleus ambiguus, involved in expressions of social engagement and speech. These nuclei appear to be critical components of the core neuropsychological system that develops abnormally to produce the varied autistic spectrum disorders. We draw attention to the limitations of research methods in neuroscience and psychology that seek to identify a primary cognitive, information-processing and neocortically mediated disorder by testing the response of the individual in artificial situations. New research using micro-kinesic descriptive methods clarifies motor deficits that characterize autism. Furthermore, extensive imaging of brain activities supports a philosophical psychology of embodiment that elucidates how confusion in unconscious prospective control of actions from fetal stages impairs the child’s developing subjective agency. Finally, we offer information on movement-based therapies that can help to facilitate learning, self-regulation, and pleasure in social interaction for individuals with ASD