Mirror Ritual: an affective interface for emotional self-reflection

Nina Rajcic; Jon McCormack

doi:10.1145/3313831.3376625

Mirror Ritual: an affective interface for emotional self-reflection

Nina Rajcic, Jon McCormack

Department of Human Centred Computing

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Research › peer-review

Abstract

This paper introduces a new form of real-time affective interface that engages the user in a process of conceptualisation of their emotional state. Inspired by Barrett’s Theory of Constructed Emotion, ‘Mirror Ritual’ aims to expand upon the user’s accessible emotion concepts, and to ultimately provoke emotional reflection and regulation. The interface uses classified emotions – obtained through facial expression recognition – as a basis for dynamically generating poetry. The perceived
emotion is used to seed a poetry generation system based on OpenAI’s GPT-2 model, fine-tuned on a specially curated corpus. We evaluate the device’s ability to foster a personalised, meaningful experience for individual users over a sustained
period. A qualitative analysis revealed that participants were able to affectively engage with the mirror, with each participant developing a unique interpretation of its poetry in the context of their own emotional landscape.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Editors	Joanna McGrenere, Andy Cockburn
Place of Publication	New York NY USA
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Number of pages	13
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450367080
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376625
Publication status	Published - 2020
Event	International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2020 - Honolulu , United States of America Duration: 25 Apr 2020 → 30 Apr 2020 Conference number: 38th https://chi2020.acm.org (Website) https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/3313831 (Proceedings)

Conference

Conference	International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2020
Abbreviated title	CHI 2020
Country/Territory	United States of America
City	Honolulu
Period	25/04/20 → 30/04/20
Internet address	https://chi2020.acm.org (Website) https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/3313831 (Proceedings)

Keywords

Affective computing
affective interface
theory of constructed emotion
computational creativity
emotion
poetry
generative networks

Access to Document

10.1145/3313831.3376625

1 Conference Paper

Mirror Ritual: human-machine co-construction of emotion
Rajcic, N. & McCormack, J., 2020, Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction. Shaer, O., van Dijk, J. & Kun, A. (eds.). New York NY USA: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), p. 697-702 6 p.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Other › peer-review

Open Access
File

5 Citations (Scopus)

Cite this

@inproceedings{fda0f989a241403abf656a9225c94b07,

title = "Mirror Ritual: an affective interface for emotional self-reflection",

abstract = "This paper introduces a new form of real-time affective interface that engages the user in a process of conceptualisation of their emotional state. Inspired by Barrett{\textquoteright}s Theory of Constructed Emotion, {\textquoteleft}Mirror Ritual{\textquoteright} aims to expand upon the user{\textquoteright}s accessible emotion concepts, and to ultimately provoke emotional reflection and regulation. The interface uses classified emotions – obtained through facial expression recognition – as a basis for dynamically generating poetry. The perceivedemotion is used to seed a poetry generation system based on OpenAI{\textquoteright}s GPT-2 model, fine-tuned on a specially curated corpus. We evaluate the device{\textquoteright}s ability to foster a personalised, meaningful experience for individual users over a sustainedperiod. A qualitative analysis revealed that participants were able to affectively engage with the mirror, with each participant developing a unique interpretation of its poetry in the context of their own emotional landscape.",

keywords = "Affective computing, affective interface, theory of constructed emotion, computational creativity, emotion, poetry, generative networks",

author = "Nina Rajcic and Jon McCormack",

year = "2020",

doi = "10.1145/3313831.3376625",

language = "English",

editor = "McGrenere, \{Joanna \} and Cockburn, \{Andy \}",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)",

address = "United States of America",

note = "International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2020, CHI 2020 ; Conference date: 25-04-2020 Through 30-04-2020",

url = "https://chi2020.acm.org, https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/3313831",

}

Rajcic, N & McCormack, J 2020, Mirror Ritual: an affective interface for emotional self-reflection. in J McGrenere & A Cockburn (eds), Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems., 498, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York NY USA, International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2020, Honolulu , Hawaii, United States of America, 25/04/20. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376625

Mirror Ritual: an affective interface for emotional self-reflection. / Rajcic, Nina; McCormack, Jon.
Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ed. / Joanna McGrenere; Andy Cockburn. New York NY USA: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2020. 498.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Paper › Research › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - Mirror Ritual

T2 - International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2020

AU - Rajcic, Nina

AU - McCormack, Jon

N1 - Conference code: 38th

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - This paper introduces a new form of real-time affective interface that engages the user in a process of conceptualisation of their emotional state. Inspired by Barrett’s Theory of Constructed Emotion, ‘Mirror Ritual’ aims to expand upon the user’s accessible emotion concepts, and to ultimately provoke emotional reflection and regulation. The interface uses classified emotions – obtained through facial expression recognition – as a basis for dynamically generating poetry. The perceivedemotion is used to seed a poetry generation system based on OpenAI’s GPT-2 model, fine-tuned on a specially curated corpus. We evaluate the device’s ability to foster a personalised, meaningful experience for individual users over a sustainedperiod. A qualitative analysis revealed that participants were able to affectively engage with the mirror, with each participant developing a unique interpretation of its poetry in the context of their own emotional landscape.

AB - This paper introduces a new form of real-time affective interface that engages the user in a process of conceptualisation of their emotional state. Inspired by Barrett’s Theory of Constructed Emotion, ‘Mirror Ritual’ aims to expand upon the user’s accessible emotion concepts, and to ultimately provoke emotional reflection and regulation. The interface uses classified emotions – obtained through facial expression recognition – as a basis for dynamically generating poetry. The perceivedemotion is used to seed a poetry generation system based on OpenAI’s GPT-2 model, fine-tuned on a specially curated corpus. We evaluate the device’s ability to foster a personalised, meaningful experience for individual users over a sustainedperiod. A qualitative analysis revealed that participants were able to affectively engage with the mirror, with each participant developing a unique interpretation of its poetry in the context of their own emotional landscape.

KW - Affective computing

KW - affective interface

KW - theory of constructed emotion

KW - computational creativity

KW - emotion

KW - poetry

KW - generative networks

U2 - 10.1145/3313831.3376625

DO - 10.1145/3313831.3376625

M3 - Conference Paper

BT - Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

A2 - McGrenere, Joanna

A2 - Cockburn, Andy

PB - Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

CY - New York NY USA

Y2 - 25 April 2020 through 30 April 2020

ER -

Mirror Ritual: an affective interface for emotional self-reflection

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

Access to Document

Research output

Mirror Ritual: human-machine co-construction of emotion

Cite this