Similarities and differences of emotions in human–machine and human–human interactions: what kind of emotions are relevant for future companion systems?

Abstract

Cognitive-technical intelligence is envisioned to be constantly available and capable of adapting to the user's emotions. However, the question is: what specific emotions should be reliably recognised by intelligent systems? Hence, in this study, we have attempted to identify similarities and differences of emotions between human–human (HHI) and human–machine interactions (HMI). We focused on what emotions in the experienced scenarios of HMI are retroactively reflected as compared with HHI. The sample consisted of N = 145 participants, who were divided into two groups. Positive and negative scenario descriptions of HMI and HHI were given by the first and second groups, respectively. Subsequently, the participants evaluated their respective scenarios with the help of 94 adjectives relating to emotions. The correlations between the occurrences of emotions in the HMI versus HHI were very high. The results do not support the statement that only a few emotions in HMI are relevant.

Abstract

Practitioner Summary: This study sought to identify the relevant emotions in different technical domains their companion systems tend to use. Overall, the 20 essential emotions found as highly relevant for HMI were as follows: (i) positive, i.e. satisfied, pleased, happy, relieved, pleasant, well, serene, optimistic, confident and self-confident and (ii) negative, i.e. annoyed, aggravated, impatient, angry, unsatisfied, displeased, irritable, frustrated, enraged and tense.

Keywords::

• companion system (CS)
• emotions
• human–machine interaction (HMI)
• human–human interaction (HHI)

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by grants from the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre SFB/TRR 62 ‘Companion Technology for Cognitive Technical Systems’ (http://www.sfb-trr-62.de/) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).