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 in-between 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

Descartes' Error?

immaterial

material

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

Joseph Weizenbaum’s Eliza (Java Version

Article by Noah Wardrip-Fruin

Eliza, Tale-Spin, and SimCity

“Jenn” at alaskaair.com

Alicebot.Org

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. Emergent Emotions2. Fast Primary Emotions3. Cognitive Emotions4. Emotional Experience5. 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 “hard-wired, 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 InteractionsEmotions 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 SeminarLearning• FOCUS GROUPS• FLOW ANALYSIS• COGNITIVE TASK

ANALYSIS• HISTORICAL ANALYSIS• AFFINITY DIAGRAMSLooking• FLY ON THE WALL• A DAY IN THE LIFE• SHADOWING• PERSONAL INVENTORY

Asking• CONCEPTUAL

LANDSCAPE (mental models)

• COLLAGE• FOREIGN

CORRESPONDENTS• CARD SORTTrying• EMPATHY TOOLS• SCENARIOS• NEXT YEAR’S HEADLINES• INFORMANCE

Focus on the prototype assessmentUser Testing

Each student to outline how they will/have learnt, looked, asked and/or observed usageWhat methods have you used/plan to useWhat has proved to be the most useful?