[iva] CFP - Special Issue on Computational Modelling of Emotion: Theory and Applications

ddp D.D.Petters at cs.bham.ac.uk
Mon Apr 23 11:03:24 CEST 2018


Dear Intelligent Virtual Agents announcements list,

please find the following CFP:

====

IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing special issue on 'Computational 
modelling of emotion: theory and applications'

https://www.computer.org/web/tac
https://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/transactions/cfps/cfp_tac_cmeta.pdf

Schedule:

- Abstract submission: May 11th 2018  (abstracts should e-mailed 
directly to guest editors at d.d.petters at cs.bham.ac.uk, by a deadline of 
May 11th 2018, that it may be possible to negotiate a later date for 
submitting the abstract – please contact the guest editors at 
d.d.petters at cs.bham.ac.uk)

- Closed for submissions:  June 9th 2018

- Results of first round of reviews: 10 Sept 2018

- Submission of revised manuscripts: 1 Jan 2019

- Results of second round of reviews: 1 Feb 2019

- Publication materials due: 30th March 2019

Call:

In the early decades of cognitive science research, emotion was either 
absent or side-lined from most computational models of human behaviour.  
Since then interest in attempts to computationally model emotions has 
grown, with many projects now either attempting to understand natural 
emotions or to implement synthetic emotions in chatbots, virtual agents 
or robots, for practical uses of many sorts from entertainment to 
caring.  Whilst there are now numerous models of affective phenomena in 
the literature, they differ in important respects. They differ in how 
they describe and explain a range of phenomena, including the nature and 
order of perceptual, cognitive and emotional mental processes and 
behavioural responses in emotional episodes.  They also differ in their 
target level of granularity: from fine-grained neural to coarse-grained 
psychological.  Different models simulate emotions (and other mental 
states) with different ontological status and with a different focus on 
whether they model external behaviour or internal states. This diversity 
provides a challenge, but also an opportunity.

This special issue aims to facilitate movement towards a mature 
integrated field with a deeper and richer understanding of biological 
minds and also design functionalities of applied models by more clearly 
setting out interrelationships between models and present attempts to 
provide formal or standard models of particular approaches within 
emotion modelling.  For example,Marsella, Gratch and Petta (2010) focus 
on appraisal and dimensional models and Scherer (2010) sets out a 
broader taxonomic analysis including radically different kinds of 
emotion models, including: appraisal; adaptational; dimensional; 
motivational; circuit; discrete; lexical and social constructivist 
models.  Whilst Broekens, DeGroot and Kosters (2008) provide a deeper 
yet narrower analysis by formalising the structure of emotional 
appraisal structures with a notation for the declarative semantics of 
these kinds of emotional states.Hudlicka (2011) shows how a broader 
organising approach can progress by highlighting the generation and 
effect of emotions as fundamental processes with associated 'generic 
tasks' that can lead to broad categorisations useful in creating 
guidelines for model development and more systematic comparison of 
existing models.  The project for standardisation and formalisation for 
emotion models is taken further by Reisenzein, Hudlicka, Dastani, 
Gratch, Hindriks, Lorini, and Meyer (2013), who propose further 
standardisation; formalisation; and in addition, integration of emotion 
models with existing prominent and widely used cognitive architectures.  
Standardisation can involve benchmark scenarios and replication of 
results.  However, benchmarks can have a negative influence on progress 
if they become narrow targets for model development.  This kind of 
narrow development can be minimised by clarity regarding how the 
modelling is done and what theoretical or applied goals are to be 
achieved for a given model.

Contributions that move this debate in the literature forward by further 
identifying and attempting to remedy gaps in current research on 
affective phenomena are particularly welcome.  For example, some emotion 
models fail to acknowledge that emotions are just a subcategory of 
"affect". Richer theories and models should include motives, 
attachments, preferences, values, standards, attitudes, moods, 
ambitions, obsessions, humour, grief, various kinds of pride, and 
various other social, complex and secondary emotions as well  as moral 
and aesthetic phenomena. The narrow focus may not matter much for 
narrowly focused applications of AI, such as toys or entertainment, but 
it can lead to serious omissions and distortions in attempts to advance 
the science of mind through computational modelling.

Therefore the aims of this special issue include:  presenting the state 
of the art in emotion modelling and considering how existing research in 
modelling of emotions, motivation and other varieties of affect can be 
integrated, validated and compared with each other as well as with 
possible 'standard models' of emotion.  The special edition also aims to 
explaining how technological applications based on this broader, more 
standardised and formalised approach can be used to make contributions 
to psychological theory.

References:
Broekens, J., DeGroot, D., and Kosters, W. A. (2008). Formal Models of 
Appraisal: Theory, Specification, and Computational Model. Cognitive 
Systems Research, 9(3), 173-197.
Hudlicka, E. Guidelines for Developing Computational Models of Emotions. 
International Journal of Synthetic Emotions, 2(1), 2011, 26-79.

Marsella, S, Gratch, J, and Petta, P. (2010). Computational Models of 
Emotion.  In Klaus R. Scherer, Tanja Bänziger & Etienne Roesch (eds.), A 
Blueprint for Affective Computing: A Sourcebook and Manual. OUP, Oxford, 
pp. 21-45

Reisenzein, R., Hudlicka, E., Dastani, M., Gratch, J., Lorini, E.,, 
Meyer, J., (2013).: Computational Modeling of Emotion: Toward Improving 
the Inter- and Intradisciplinary Exchange. IEEE Transactions on 
Affective Computing, 4(3): 246-266.
Scherer, K.R., (2010). Emotion and emotional competence: conceptual and 
theoretical issues for modelling agents." In. Blueprint for affective 
computing: A sourcebook and manual,eds. Klaus R. Scherer, Tanja 
Bänziger, and Etienne Roesch. OUP, Oxford, pp. 3-20

Topics include, but are not limited to:

●       Computational architectures which model emotion
●       Models of affect which are incorporated within applications in 
human computer interaction and health technology. For example, in the 
health domain, emotion models which can enhance assessment, diagnosis 
and treatment.
●       Embodied, situated and enactivist approaches to emotion
●       Emotion model validation
●       Cognition-emotion interactions, including: how models explain 
the nature of interaction between reasoning and emotion, affective 
biases, and the emotional underpinnings of reasoning;
●       Emotion modelling in computational psychiatry, including 
investigating the mechanisms of pathological thinking and emotion
●       Attachment modelling, in particular how dyadic coupled emotions 
form and shape social interactions in the moment and over ontogentic 
development
●       The time course of emotional episodes, including how emotions 
and cognitions shape each other over different timescales, from 
momentary episodes to longer term affective states and the development 
of personality, plus how timing may be used in model validation
●       How the interaction between cognition and emotion relates to 
mechanisms of self-control, meta-management and coherence in thought and 
behaviour, and loss of these states

Submission process:

abstracts should e-mailed directly to guest editors at 
d.d.petters at cs.bham.ac.uk, by a deadline of May 11th 2018,  it may be 
possible to negotiate a later date for submitting the abstract – please 
contact the guest editors at d.d.petters at cs.bham.ac.uk

Submission point for full papers by the deadline of June 9th 2018: 
https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/taffc-cs

The expected page lengths is up to and usually not over 12 formatted, 
double column pages.

Further author instructions on this page: 
https://www.computer.org/web/tac/author (which includes latex and other 
document templates)

This IEEE TAC special issue will accept improved and enlarged conference 
papers, (an approximate guide is around at least 30% longer/improved 
material from the conference publication).


Guest editors:

Dean Petters (senior lecturer in psychology, Dept. of Psychology, School 
of Social Sciences, Birmingham City University UK, d.petters at wlv.ac.uk).

Joel Parthemore (visiting researcher, Dept. of Cognitive Neuroscience 
and Philosophy, University of Skövde, Sweden, joel.parthemore at his.se).

David Moffatt (lecturer, School of Engineering and Built Environment, 
Glasgow Caledonian University, D.C.Moffat at gcu.ac.uk).

Celso De Melo (computer scientist, US Army Research Laboratory, Playa 
Vista, CA, celso.miguel.de.melo at gmail.com).

Christian Becker-Asano (research scientist, Bosch R&D, Renningen, 
Germany, christian at becker-asano.de).


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