Experiencing mixed emotions, a combination of two oppositely-valenced emotions, has been shown to reduce bias in decision making and improve the accuracy of judgements made. However, most previous...

Today's computers are becoming ever more versatile. They are used in various applications, such as for education, entertainment, and information services. In other words, computers are often required to not only inform users of information but also communicate with them socially. Previous studies explored the design of ambient light displays and suggested that such systems can convey information to people in the periphery of their attention without distracting them from their primary work. However, they mainly focused on using ambient lights (...) to convey certain information. It is still unclear whether and how the lights can influence people's perception and decision-making. To explore this, we performed three experiments using a ping-pong game, Ultimatum game, and Give-Some game, in which we attached an LED strip to the front-bottom of a computer monitor and had it display a set of light expressions. Our evaluation of the results suggested that expressive lights do affect human perception and decision-making. Participants liked and anthropomorphized the computer more when it displayed light animations. Particularly, they perceived the computer as positive and friendlier when it displayed green and low intensity light animation, while red and high intensity light animation was perceived as negative and more hostile. They consequently behaved with more tolerance and cooperation to the computer when it was positive compared with when it was negative. The findings can open up possibilities for the design of ambient light systems for various applications where human-machine interaction is needed. (shrink)

Practices such as mindfulness, introspection, and self-reflection are known to have positive short and long-term effects on health and well-being. However, in today's modern, fast-paced, technological world tempted by distractions these practices are often hard to access and relate to a broader audience. Consequently, technologies have emerged that mediate personal experiences, which is reflected in the high number of available applications designed to elicit positive changes. These technologies elicit positive changes by bringing users' attention to the self—from technologies that show (...) representation of quantified personal data, to technologies that provide experiences that guide the user closer in understanding the self. However, while many designs available today are either built to support or are informed by these aforementioned practices, the question remains: how can we most effectively employ different design elements and interaction strategies to support positive change? Moreover, what types of input and output modalities contribute to eliciting positive states? To address these questions, we present here a state of the art scoping review of immersive interactive technologies that serve in a role of a mediator for positive change in users. We performed a literature search using ACM Digital Library, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, and Design and Applied Arts Index (beginning of literature—January 1, 2018). We retrieved English-language articles for review, and we searched for published and unpublished studies. Risk of bias was assessed with Downs and Black 26-item QAT scale. We included 34 articles as relevant to the literature, and the analysis of the articles resulted in 38 instances of 33 immersive, interactive experiences relating to positive human functioning. Our contribution is three-fold: First we provide a scoping review of immersive interactive technologies for positive change; Second, we propose both a framework for future designs of positive interactive technologies and design consideration informed by the comparative analysis of the designs; Third, we provide design considerations for immersive, interactive technologies to elicit positive states and support positive change. (shrink)

Affective computing adopts a computational approach to study affect. We highlight the AC approach towards automated affect measures that jointly model machine-readable physiological/behavioral signals with affect estimates as reported by humans or experimentally elicited. We describe the conceptual and computational foundations of the approach followed by two case studies: one on discrimination between genuine and faked expressions of pain in the lab, and the second on measuring nonbasic affect in the wild. We discuss applications of the measures, analyze measurement accuracy (...) and generalizability, and highlight advances afforded by computational tipping points, such as big data, wearable sensing, crowdsourcing, and deep learning. We conclude by advocating for increasing synergies between AC and affective science and offer suggestions toward that direction. (shrink)

Emotions play a significant role in human cognitive processes such as attention, motivation, learning, memory, and decision making. Many researchers have worked in the field of incorporating emotions in a cognitive agent. However, each model has its own merits and demerits. Moreover, most studies on emotion focus on steady-state emotions than emotion switching. Thus, in this article, a domain-independent computational model of emotions for intelligent agent is proposed that have modules for emotion elicitation, emotion regulation, and emotion transition. The model (...) is built on some well-known psychological theories such as appraisal theories of emotions, emotion regulation theory, and multistore human memory model. The design of the model is using the concept of fuzzy logic to handle uncertain and subjective information. The main focus is on primary emotions as suggested by Ekman; however, simultaneous elicitation of multiple emotions is also supported by the model. (shrink)