TR#524: Affective Objects

Jocelyn Scheirer and Rosalind W. Picard


March 2000

This paper will attempt to define a new area of research: affective communication through the use of affective objects. An affective object may be defined as any physical object which has the ability to sense emotional data from a person, map that information to an abstract form of expression and communicate that information expressively, either back to the subject herself or to another person. This paper will also propose a theory of how to utilize existing knowledge (i.e. how humans interpret the expressive qualities of modalities such as color, sound, and light) to inform the invention process.

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