Emotions as Durative Dynamic State for Action Selection

This paper presents a representation system for maintaining interacting durative states to replicate realistic emotional control. Our model, the Dynamic Emotion Representation (DER) integrates emotional responses and keeps track of emotion intensities changing over time. The developer can specify an interacting network of emotional states with appropriate onsets, sustains and decays. The levels of these states can be used as input for action selection, including emotional expression. We present both a general representational framework and a specific instance of a DER network constructed for a virtual character. The character’s DER uses three types of emotional state as classified by duration timescales, in keeping with current emotional theory. The system is demonstrated with a virtual actor.