Incorporating Emotion Regulation into Virtual Stories

Tibor Bosse, Matthijs Pontier, Ghazanfar F. Siddiqui, and Jan Treur

Overview of this presentation

● Emotion Regulation model of Gross● Computational model incorporated in agents● Simulation results● Future enhancements

Motivation for research

● Virtual Storytelling: Emergent Narrative● Shallow avatars become complex personalities● Interesting for entertainment

e.g. Computer-Games with human-like characters

● Interesting for educational purposes e.g. Virtual training environment for psychotherapists

Model of emotion regulation by Gross

● The experienced level of emotion can be changed by choosing a different: Situation

● Meet with friend vs Be alone

Sub-situation● Talk about soccer vs Talk about hockey

Aspect● Distract attention vs Pay attention

Meaning● “This is really important” vs “Not important”

Model of emotion-regulation by Gross

The computational model

● Emotional Values of elements that are chosen are expressed in real numbers [0, 2] Situation Selection = 1.12 -->

● The chosen situation has an emotion-level of 1.12

● The Emotion-Response-Level is also expressed in a real number [0, 2]

● The Emotion-Response-Level is influenced by the Emotional Values

● The chosen Emotional Values are influenced by the Emotion-Response-Level

Virtual Storytelling

● Emotion regulation model is incorporated into virtual agents

● Agents always pick option with emotional value closest to their optimal emotion response level

● Simulation results are visualized using Vizard Software

Emotion Regulation Strategies

● Simulated Emotion is Happiness

● Situation = Being with other agent or alone● Subsituation= Conversation subject● Aspect = Focus on conversation or not● Meaning = Attach importance to current

state using self-talk

Rules for virtual storytelling

● Events in the external world can influence the emotion response level and emotional values agents attach to certain elements

● If agent A talks about a certain conversation subject to agent B, then the emotional value B attaches to A is adjusted towards the emotional value B attaches to the conversation subject

new_EVagent_A =

friendship * EVagent_A + (1-friendship) * EVCS

Rules for virtual storytelling

● Emotional value for distracting is high if an agent does not like the conversation subjectnew_EVdistract = asp * EVdistract + (1-asp) * (-EVCS + dmax)

● Emotional value for relativizing current state is high if an agent has a low emotion response levelnew_EVrelativise = dmax - ERL

Visualisation of model

ERL Smiling

World facts Displayed in white text

Contacting Agent shouts towards other agent

Meeting Agents walk towards meeting point and greet

Conversations Speech displayed in yellow text

Attention focus Look towards / away from conversation partner

Meaning Self-talk displayed in red text

Parameter settings for simulation

Harry Barry Gary

EVHarry

- 1.7 1.6EV

Barry1.8 - 0.6

EVGary

1.7 0.7 -EV

Alone0.6 1.0 0.8

EVfootball

1.8 1.6 0.7EV

ajax1.7 0.4 0.8

EVfeyenoord

0.5 1.5 0.5EV

hockey0.5 0.7 1.9

Vizard simulation

• <Show movie>

•

Future enhancements

Variable ability to recognize emotional state Modify response using social desirability etc. Use theory of mind of other agents Etc.

Questions?