The perception of emotion in artificial agents

Given recent technological developments in robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, it is perhaps unsurprising that the arrival of emotionally expressive and reactive artificial agents is imminent. However, if such agents are to become integrated into our social milieu, it is imperative to establish an understanding of whether and how humans perceive emotion in artificial agents. In this review, we incorporate recent findings from social robotics, virtual reality, psychology, and neuroscience to examine how people recognize and respond to emotions displayed by artificial agents. First, we review how people perceive emotions expressed by an artificial agent, such as facial and bodily expressions and vocal tone. Second, we evaluate the similarities and differences in the consequences of perceived emotions in artificial compared to human agents. Besides accurately recognizing the emotional state of an artificial agent, it is critical to understand how humans respond to those emotions. Does interacting with an angry robot induce the same responses in people as interacting with an angry person? Similarly, does watching a robot rejoice when it wins a game elicit similar feelings of elation in the human observer? Here we provide an overview of the current state of emotion expression and perception in social robotics, as well as a clear articulation of the challenges and guiding principles to be addressed as we move ever closer to truly emotional artificial agents

Embodied Robot Models for Interdisciplinary Emotion Research

Due to their complex nature, emotions cannot be properly understood from the perspective of a single discipline. In this paper, I discuss how the use of robots as models is beneficial for interdisciplinary emotion research. Addressing this issue through the lens of my own research, I focus on a critical analysis of embodied robots models of different aspects of emotion, relate them to theories in psychology and neuroscience, and provide representative examples. I discuss concrete ways in which embodied robot models can be used to carry out interdisciplinary emotion research, assessing their contributions: as hypothetical models, and as operational models of specific emotional phenomena, of general emotion principles, and of specific emotion ``dimensions''. I conclude by discussing the advantages of using embodied robot models over other models.Peer reviewe

Paradoxes of interactivity: perspectives for media theory, human-computer interaction, and artistic investigations

Current findings from anthropology, genetics, prehistory, cognitive and neuroscience indicate that human nature is grounded in a co-evolution of tool use, symbolic communication, social interaction and cultural transmission. Digital information technology has recently entered as a new tool in this co-evolution, and will probably have the strongest impact on shaping the human mind in the near future. A common effort from the humanities, the sciences, art and technology is necessary to understand this ongoing co- evolutionary process. Interactivity is a key for understanding the new relationships formed by humans with social robots as well as interactive environments and wearables underlying this process. Of special importance for understanding interactivity are human-computer and human-robot interaction, as well as media theory and New Media Art. "Paradoxes of Interactivity" brings together reflections on "interactivity" from different theoretical perspectives, the interplay of science and art, and recent technological developments for artistic applications, especially in the realm of sound

Paradoxes of Interactivity

Current findings from anthropology, genetics, prehistory, cognitive and neuroscience indicate that human nature is grounded in a co-evolution of tool use, symbolic communication, social interaction and cultural transmission. Digital information technology has recently entered as a new tool in this co-evolution, and will probably have the strongest impact on shaping the human mind in the near future. A common effort from the humanities, the sciences, art and technology is necessary to understand this ongoing co- evolutionary process. Interactivity is a key for understanding the new relationships formed by humans with social robots as well as interactive environments and wearables underlying this process. Of special importance for understanding interactivity are human-computer and human-robot interaction, as well as media theory and New Media Art. »Paradoxes of Interactivity« brings together reflections on »interactivity« from different theoretical perspectives, the interplay of science and art, and recent technological developments for artistic applications, especially in the realm of sound

Building and Designing Expressive Speech Synthesis

We know there is something special about speech. Our voices are not just a means of communicating. They also give a deep impression of who we are and what we might know. They can betray our upbringing, our emotional state, our state of health. They can be used to persuade and convince, to calm and to excite. As speech systems enter the social domain they are required to interact, support and mediate our social relationships with 1) each other, 2) with digital information, and, increasingly, 3) with AI-based algorithms and processes. Socially Interactive Agents (SIAs) are at the fore- front of research and innovation in this area. There is an assumption that in the future “spoken language will provide a natural conversational interface between human beings and so-called intelligent systems.” [Moore 2017, p. 283]. A considerable amount of previous research work has tested this assumption with mixed results. However, as pointed out “voice interfaces have become notorious for fostering frustration and failure” [Nass and Brave 2005, p.6]. It is within this context, between our exceptional and intelligent human use of speech to communicate and interact with other humans, and our desire to leverage this means of communication for artificial systems, that the technology, often termed expressive speech synthesis uncomfortably falls. Uncomfortably, because it is often overshadowed by issues in interactivity and the underlying intelligence of the system which is something that emerges from the interaction of many of the components in a SIA. This is especially true of what we might term conversational speech, where decoupling how things are spoken, from when and to whom they are spoken, can seem an impossible task. This is an even greater challenge in evaluation and in characterising full systems which have made use of expressive speech. Furthermore when designing an interaction with a SIA, we must not only consider how SIAs should speak but how much, and whether they should even speak at all. These considerations cannot be ignored. Any speech synthesis that is used in the context of an artificial agent will have a perceived accent, a vocal style, an underlying emotion and an intonational model. Dimensions like accent and personality (cross speaker parameters) as well as vocal style, emotion and intonation during an interaction (within-speaker parameters) need to be built in the design of a synthetic voice. Even a default or neutral voice has to consider these same expressive speech synthesis components. Such design parameters have a strong influence on how effectively a system will interact, how it is perceived and its assumed ability to perform a task or function. To ignore these is to blindly accept a set of design decisions that ignores the complex effect speech has on the user’s successful interaction with a system. Thus expressive speech synthesis is a key design component in SIAs. This chapter explores the world of expressive speech synthesis, aiming to act as a starting point for those interested in the design, building and evaluation of such artificial speech. The debates and literature within this topic are vast and are fundamentally multidisciplinary in focus, covering a wide range of disciplines such as linguistics, pragmatics, psychology, speech and language technology, robotics and human-computer interaction (HCI), to name a few. It is not our aim to synthesise these areas but to give a scaffold and a starting point for the reader by exploring the critical dimensions and decisions they may need to consider when choosing to use expressive speech. To do this, the chapter explores the building of expressive synthesis, highlighting key decisions and parameters as well as emphasising future challenges in expressive speech research and development. Yet, before these are expanded upon we must first try and define what we actually mean by expressive speech