Emotions are a central aspect of our lives. Poets, novelists, playwrights, artists, and composers, have tried to capture the essential experience of emotions for hundreds of years. Philosophers have even debated for millennia what emotions are, and how they might relate to reason, and our wishes and desires.
In the 19th century, psychology emerged as a science. Emotions played an important part in most psychological theories explaining human mind and behavior. However, as it turned out, psychology initially had a difficult time dealing with the complexity of emotions. In the early 20th century, an influential school of thought - behaviorism - emerged that decided not to deal with the complexities of the mind and emotion research faded out of focus.
In the 19th century, psychology emerged as a science. Emotions played an important part in most psychological theories explaining human mind and behavior. However, as it turned out, psychology initially had a difficult time dealing with the complexity of emotions. In the early 20th century, an influential school of thought - behaviorism - emerged that decided not to deal with the complexities of the mind and emotion research faded out of focus.
However, in the last 50 years emotion science has come back with force. At the outset of the 3rd millenium, psychology transforms into a multidisciplinary endeavor encompassing neuroscience, biology, as well as social sciences. In consequence, our understanding of emotions is growing dramatically. As engineers have started to build systems that simulate aspects of human emotions we have moved from a descriptive approach to a world in which we try to implement our knowledge regarding emotions in embodied systems, such as virtual agents or robots.
I study emotions in the laboratory and I have been teaching the psychology of emotions for three decades. Based on my own fascination with the topic and the experience I have accumulated, I intend this web site as a modest collection of resources on emotion or affective science, as well as an outlet for some of my thoughts on the matter. Perhaps some of this content is useful for students or others curious about emotions. Go to the blog here!
Much of my recent research was funded by the European Union in the context of the 7th Framework. You can discover more about these projects here:
- CYBEREMOTIONS - Collective emotions in cyberspace (final review 2013)
- ECUTE - Education in cultural understanding - technology enhanced (final review 2014)
- EMOTE - Embodied-perceptive tutors for empathy based learning (final review 2016)
- ANIMATAS - Advancing intuitive human-machine interaction with human-like social capabilities for education in schools (ends 2022)