Theory of Affect
Part Two
MS3305
The Atmosphere of Affect
Insubstantiality of
affect makes it
difficult to touch. It
has no substance,
but it does have an
influence… a force…
Theories of Affect
• What is Affect? (Thrift,
2008 pp. 175-182)
• No stable definition
of affect
• Not just about
feeling or emotion,
more about motion,
social interaction…
Infinitive Encounters
• Thrift presents a
complex argument in
which individuals are
the effects of the
affective events they
encounter, respond to
and participate in
• He grasps these
encounters in the
affective atmosphere
described by Brennan
Four Approaches to Affect
Four Approaches to Affect
1. Darwin’s study
of emotions
•
•
Universal emotion
Affective expression
evolutionary
–
•
Preparing humans and
animals for action
Omits communicative
affect
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals in
1872
Duchenne de Boulogne
Four Approaches to Affect
2. Psychoanalytical
Affect
• Emotions part of the
inner unconsciousness
of the individual
• Linked to biological
drives
• A biologically-derived
affect
Freud
2. Psychoanalytical Affect
Based around the notion of biological drives – sexuality, libido, desire. All
regarded as the root source of human motivation and identity
2. Psychoanalytical Affect
• Emotions vehicles or
manifestations of
drives
• Problem?
• Approach reduces
affect to drives
2. Psychoanalytical Affect
• In Freudian terms,
affect becomes part
of the inner
unconsciousness of
the individual
• The Westernized
concept of the sealed
sense of self…
Four Approaches to Affect
3. Bodily States and
Processes
•
Criticises idea of subjects
“talking about” their emotion
•
Source of emotions can come
from outside the body
•
Blushes, laughs, crying and
anger are visceral responses
to others
3. Bodily States and Processes
• Emotions are not
about speaking, they
are not talk – not
forms of expression.
They are something
going on that talk
cannot grasp.
3. Bodily States and Processes
• Not understood by
analysis of texts,
symbols, material
objects and ways of
life as
representations of
emotions
See feelclickconnect.com
3. Bodily States and Processes
• Study of response-ability of bodily states
‘Blushes, laughs, cryings, and anger emerge
from faces and through coverings that usually
hide visceral substrata. The doing of emotions
is a process of breaking bodily boundaries, of
tears spilling out, rage burning up, and as
laughter bursts out, the emphatic involvement
of guts as a designated source of the
involvement.’
(Katz 2000 322 cited in Thrift)
Four Approaches to Affect
4. Manifold
“Psychology” of
Affect
•
Capacity to affect and
be affected
•
Like insects, swarms
•
Emergent interactions
driven by sensory
environment
3. Manifold Psychology of
Affect
• Affect occurs
through interaction
in the world
– Emerges from social
relationalities
– Affect is transmitted
via social interaction
– It becomes biological
• Enters the skins
Manifold Psychology of
Affect
•
Counter to Freud’s inner
unconsciousness of the
individual
•
Deleuze’s influences on
DeLanda and Massumi’s theory
of affect is founded upon
•
Capacity to affect and be
affected
•
Kind of a networkability of
affect
•
Like Tarde, the relation is more
important than the individual –
the self is porous to the other
(Thrift)
Manifold Psychology of
Affect
• An outcome of
encounter – some
joyful, some sorrowful
(Spinoza)
• Affect like a force…
• Spinoza compared love,
hate, anger, envy, pride,
pity to heat, storms and
thunder
"feelings of pain or pleasure or some quality
in between are the bedrock of our minds."
What Makes You
Angry?
Other People
Crowd Theory
Can affect be reduced to
individual psyche?
• Imagine an angry crowd the atmosphere of
contagious affect that passes
in-between each person
• Crowd Contagion - 19th
Century
• Gabriel Tarde
• Gustave Le Bon…
– Brennan’s Transmission of
Affect
– Affective Contagion (Thrift)
– Role of new technology in
the spreading of affect
Affect Occurs In-Between People
and Things
• Affect equally about
social interaction
with others and
things –
• What travels inbetween people and
things rather than
what occurs inside
Brennan’s Atmosphere of
Affect
• What happens outside (the
social) penetrates the inside
(the skin, the biological)
• “… manifested in the skin –
at the surface of the body, at
its interface with things.”
Massumi, Brian. “The Autonomy of Affect.” p. 25
Feeling, Emotion, Affect
Feeling, Emotion, Affect by Eric Shouse (drawing on Brian Massumi)
M/C Journal, Affect. Volume 8, Issue 6 Dec. 2005
Feeling
• A sensation
• ‘Checked against previous
experiences’
• Labeled (I feel happy, hurt,
angry, scared…)
• ‘Personal and biographical’
– ‘every person has a distinct
set of previous sensations
from which to draw when
interpreting and labeling’
Feeling, Emotion, Affect by Eric Shouse
M/C Journal, Affect. Volume 8, Issue 6 Dec. 2005
Emotion
• A projection
•
Display or broadcast of a feeling
•
Can be either genuine or feigned
•
Paul Ekman’s experiment
•
American and Japanese subjects
watched films depicting facial
surgery
– When alone - displayed similar
expressions
– When in groups - expressions
were different
Feeling, Emotion, Affect by Eric Shouse
M/C Journal, Affect. Volume 8, Issue 6 Dec. 2005
Affect
• A non-conscious
experience of intensity
• A moment of unformed and
unstructured potential Always prior to and/or
outside of consciousness
(Massumi in Parables of the Virtual)
• The body’s way of preparing
itself for action (decision
making)
Feeling, Emotion, Affect by Eric Shouse
M/C Journal, Affect. Volume 8, Issue 6 Dec. 2005
What is Affect?
• Thrift locates its
“strategic” use in
political and
corporate arenas…
• He also refers to its
location in design
The marketing of affect
Look at how good Apple are at developing affective
relations between users (consumers), brands and products
Emotional Design?
The marketing of affect
Corporations in the business of making 'hormonal’
splashes through increasing contact with consumers
(Thrift p. 247)
The marketing of affect
The politics of affect
battle for hearts & minds
Affect in Computing, Engineering
and Science
Affective Computing
• Field concerns emotions and
computers
• A major shift from
traditional “rationale”
computer research
• To affect and emotions
• See IBM film from 1965 (first
2mins)
• See Royal Society Summer
Exhibition (2mins)
But Jim, human
emotions are irrational
Field of Affective Computing
• Main focus on the
link between
emotion
• Decision making
• Learning
• Memory processes
Emotional and Intelligent?
Neuroscience
• Antonio Damasio
(1994) located the
importance of
emotions in thinking
processes
• I think therefore I
am
• I feel therefore I am
material
immaterial
Descartes' Error?
Making Decisions
• Contrary to Spock,
experiments with
real people with
brain disorders that
produce a lack of
emotion were found
to be terrible at
making decisions
Field of Affective Computing
• Could not stop
putting money into
bad investments
• All money gone
• Lose their jobs,
friends, family…
Degenerate Gambler?
Indecision
• Patients have
problems making
any decisions!
• Consider all the
possibilities
• Continue analyzing
• Unable to conclude
Affective Computing
•
Eerik Vesterinen’s literature review Locates prominent research questions in the
field
1. What is the foundation of recognizing,
expressing and understanding emotions?
2. Is a computer able to feel?
3. How do emotions interact with intellectual
processes and physiological systems?
4. Should we do it? Ethics!!!
How do computers recognize
emotions?
• A computer must
have senses
• Audio to hear vocal
intonations
• Video to see facial
expressions
How do computers recognize
emotions?
•
•
•
Reading infrared body temperature and measuring electrothermal skin
conductivity
Measuring heart rate and respiration
Uses these inputs to infer an emotional state
How do computers recognize
emotions?
• Testing a computer’s
ability to guess the
emotional state of a
user
Alicebot.Org
Joseph Weizenbaum’s Eliza (Java Version
Article by Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Eliza, Tale-Spin, and SimCity
“Jenn” at alaskaair.com
How do computers express
emotions?
• Like an actor
controlling facial
expressions, stance,
voice tone,
proximity etc…
Expressing emotions
• A computer can
express emotions
without really
“having” emotions,
or without really
“feeling”
• Videos of MIT's Nexi MDS Robot: First Test
of Expression
• - Official MDS Robot Video - First Test of
Expressive Ability (Longer version)
• More Robot Expression Research
Can Computers Feel?
•
Picard (1998) proposes a
model of five components that
should all be present in a
system if it is to have
emotions.
•
Consider how these might
inform a research project?
•
How can the concept of affect
become researchable?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Emergent Emotions
Fast Primary Emotions
Cognitive Emotions
Emotional Experience
Body-Mind Interactions
See also Picard’s AFFECTIVE COMPUTING FOR HCI
1. Emergent Emotions
• What you are
able to see, hear,
touch, smell,
taste…
• “Positive emotions
towards serving the
user”
2. Fast Primary Emotions
• Like Norman’s visceral
level – these are “hardwired, innate responses,
especially to potentially
harmful events.”
See Vesterinen
• Comes before conscious
thought!
• Travels through us
“unawares” (Thrift)
2. Fast Primary Emotions
• “We can feel startled,
angry, or afraid before
the signals event get to
the cortex, and before
becoming aware of what
is happening.”
See Vesterinen
• How do fast primary
emotions influence
decision making
processes?
3. Cognitive Emotions
• Thought emotions
• For example, feeling
satisfied makes you feel
good
• How can user satisfaction
be measured?
4. Emotional Experience
• A system of learnt emotion
• Rudimentary understanding of own
emotions – labels
4. Emotional Experience
• Experiences of
physiological responses
- heart rate, breathing,
cold feet…
• Conscious emotion =
awareness of “gut
feelings”
• User experience design
projects based on
– Physical reactions
– Gut feelings
– Emotional labelling
Exploring the user’s emotional landscape
5. Body-Mind Interactions
Emotions intricately interact with
the human mind and body
Body-Mind Interactions
(Emotions intricately interact with the human mind and body)
• Emotions influence
thought processes
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Decision making
Perception
Interest
Learning
Priorities
Intelligence
Memory
Body-Mind Interactions
(Emotions intricately interact with the human mind and body)
• Emotions influence
physiological systems
– Vocal and facial
expressions
– Posture and movement
– Cognitive thoughts can
generate emotions
– Biochemical processes
like hormones and
neurotransmitters and
physical drives like
hunger evoke emotions
Tasks for Seminar
Learning
•
FOCUS GROUPS
•
FLOW ANALYSIS
•
COGNITIVE TASK ANALYSIS
•
HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
•
AFFINITY DIAGRAMS
Looking
•
FLY ON THE WALL
•
A DAY IN THE LIFE
•
SHADOWING
•
PERSONAL INVENTORY
Asking
• CONCEPTUAL LANDSCAPE
(mental models)
• COLLAGE
• FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS
• CARD SORT
Trying
• EMPATHY TOOLS
• SCENARIOS
• NEXT YEAR’S HEADLINES
• INFORMANCE
Focus on the prototype assessment
User Testing
Each student to outline how they will/have learnt, looked, asked and/or observed usage
What methods have you used/plan to use
What has proved to be the most useful?