Special Session on Affective Computing and Adaptive Human-Machine Interaction

Robots without the ability to detect human emotions and computers with the current state of technology being limited to the keyboard and mouse are no more than autistic machines. This has made affect based human robot interaction an area of increasing importance in recent years. Human emotions and nonverbal communications are a vital part of human-human communication. Many computer systems and robots would significantly improve performance if they could adapt to the emotional state of the humans using them, for example if robots, information/ help kiosks, ATM’s, automatic ticketing machines could recognize when users were confused, frustrated or angry they could adapt themselves or guide the user back to remedial help systems so improving the service. However, not being able to estimate the affective state of the users they are not able to offer these additional capabilities.

Affective computing is a promising area in providing solutions to the many problems in detection, interpretation, inclusion and expression of emotions in future human-robot and human-computer interfaces. Realizing the growth in the field of affective computing in recent years, this Special Session aims to provide a forum for scientists and emerging researchers to discuss problems, present their solutions and exchange ideas. The Special Session aims to provide an environment for the research community of affective computing and human machine interaction to strengthen possibilities for collaborations providing for improved solutions for the existing problems of affective computing and human robot interaction.

Prospective authors are invited to submit papers for presentation at the Special Session. Papers should be submitted to Abdolhossein Sarrafzadeh H.A.Sarrafzadeh@massey.ac.nz  following the ICARA conference guidelines- visit http://icara.massey.ac.nz/.

Deadline for submission is 15 July 2006.

Scope of the Special Session

-Affective robotics and humanoid robots
-Detection of Emotion and Non-Verbal Cues
-Emotion and nonverbal communications in game playing
-Affect in virtual reality
-Expression of affect by computers and robots
-Affective tutoring systems
-Adapting through emotions and nonverbal cues in intelligent user interfaces
-Theoretical aspects of emotions