Expressing Emotions as Emoticons for Online Intelligent Agents

Without emotional annotation, online communication can be ambiguous and lead to misunderstandings. This paper addresses the questions of which emotions are commonly expressed online, how these emotions can be encapsulated in emoticons, and how people respond to different emotions. In 10 focus groups with university students we found that some emotions are not frequently expressed online (e.g. aggravation, alienantion and torment), while many others were commonly used (e.g. enthusiasm, anger, amusement, amazement and disgust). Emoticons were drawn or described for nine commonly expressed emotions, and the response discussed. Audience was a key component in how people used emoticons, both for use and interpretation. Participants preferred to ‘defuse’ negative emotions such as anger and rage with light-hearted comments, supporting previous findings on a positivity bias on many social networks. These findings have implications for online communication and the design of intelligent virtual agents.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Kirsten A. Smith

Judith Masthoff

Nava Tintarev

Conference

Publication date: July 2016

Publication date (Print): July 2016

Pages: 1-9

Affiliations

[0001]Computing Science

University of Aberdeen

UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.44

SO-VID: d91eb4a2-2a16-4b92-ae7d-b4f69315e132

Copyright statement: © A. Smith et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. Proceedings of British HCI 2016 Conference Fusion, Bournemouth, UK

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of the 30th International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 30

Conference location: Bournemouth University, Poole, UK

Conference date: 11 - 15 July 2016

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Fusion

Product

Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.44

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

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O. ChurchesM. NichollsM. ThiessenM. KohlerH. Keage 2014 Emoticons in mind:An event-related potential study Social neuroscience 9 2 196 202
M. DennisP. KindnessJ. MasthoffC. MellishK. Smith 2013 Towards effective emotional support for community first responders experiencing stress Int Conf Affect Comput Intell Interact.
D. Derks 2007 Exploring the missing wink: emoticons in cyberspace Dissertation - Open University of Netherlands, Leiderdorp.
D. DerksA. E. BosJ. Von Grumbkow 2007 Emoticons and online message interpretation Social Science Computer Review.
D. DerksA. E. BosJ. Von Grumbkow 2008 Emoticons in computer-mediated communication: Social motives and social context CyberPsychology & Behavior 11 1 99 101
P. EkmanW. V. Friesen 1975 Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial clues. Englewood Cliffs Prentice Hall
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S. Frier 2016 Inside facebook’s decision to blow up the like button Available from http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-reactions-chris-cox/ 24/05/2016
A. HogenboomD. BalF. FrasincarM. BalF. de JongU. Kaymak 2013 Exploiting emoticons in sentiment analysis Proceedings of the 28th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing pp. 703 710 ACM
S. A. KingD. Moreggi 2007 Internet self help and support groups: The pros and cons of textbased mutual aid Psychology and the Internet: Intrapersonal, interpersonal and transpersonal implications 221 244
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S.-K. Lo 2008 The nonverbal communication functions of emoticons in computer-mediated communication CyberPsychology & Behavior 11 5 595 597
D. W. MassaroP. B. Egan 1996 Perceiving affect from the voice and the face Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 3 2 215 221
M. Nakano 2016 Why and how I created emoji: Interview with shigetaka kurita Available from http://ignition.co/105 24/05/2016
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H. PrendingerM. Ishizuka 2005 The empathic companion: A character-based interface that addresses users’affective states Applied AI 19 3-4 267 285
L. ReineckeS. Trepte 2014 Authenticity and well-being on social network sites: A two-wave longitudinal study on the effects of online authenticity and the positivity bias in sns communication Computers in Human Behavior 30 95 102
L. Ruan 2011 Meaningful signs?emoticons Theory and Practice in Language Studies 1 1 91 94
K. R. SchererR. BanseH. G. WallbottT. Goldbeck 1991 Vocal cues in emotion encoding and decoding Motivation and emotion 15 2 123 148
P. ShaverJ. SchwartzD. KirsonC. O’connor 1987 Emotion knowledge: further exploration of a prototype approach Journal of personality and social psychology 52 6 1061
K. A. Smith 2015 Assessing the supportiveness of gift emoticons in care scenarios Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems pp. 151 156 ACM
K. A. SmithJ. MasthoffN. TintarevW. Moncur 2014 The development and evaluation of an emotional support algorithm for carers Intelligenza Artificiale.
P SubasicA. Huettner 2001 Affect analysis of text using fuzzy semantic typing Fuzzy Systems, IEEE Transactions on 9 4 483 496
P. SundströmA. StåhlK. Hook 2005 emoto: affectively involving both body and mind CHI’05 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. ACM
D. ThompsonR. Filik 2016 Sarcasm in written communication: Emoticons are efficient markers of intention Journal of ComputerMediated Communication 21 2 105 120
N. TintarevE. ReiterA. WallerR. Black 2014 Natural language generation for augmentative and alternative communication A. StentS. Bangalore Eds.), Natural Language Generation in Interactive Systems 252 277 Cambridge University Press
J. B. WaltherK. P. D’Addario 2001 The impacts of emoticons on message interpretation in computer-mediated communication Social science computer review 19 3 324 347
M. YuasaK. SaitoN. Mukawa 2006 Emoticons convey emotions without cognition of faces: an fmri study CHI’06 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems pp. 1565 1570 ACM

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] H. S. CheangM. D. Pell 2008 The sound of sarcasm Speech communication 50 5 366 381

[2] O. ChurchesM. NichollsM. ThiessenM. KohlerH. Keage 2014 Emoticons in mind:An event-related potential study Social neuroscience 9 2 196 202

[3] M. DennisP. KindnessJ. MasthoffC. MellishK. Smith 2013 Towards effective emotional support for community first responders experiencing stress Int Conf Affect Comput Intell Interact.

[4] D. Derks 2007 Exploring the missing wink: emoticons in cyberspace Dissertation - Open University of Netherlands, Leiderdorp.

[5] D. DerksA. E. BosJ. Von Grumbkow 2007 Emoticons and online message interpretation Social Science Computer Review.

[6] D. DerksA. E. BosJ. Von Grumbkow 2008 Emoticons in computer-mediated communication: Social motives and social context CyberPsychology & Behavior 11 1 99 101

[7] P. EkmanW. V. Friesen 1975 Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial clues. Englewood Cliffs Prentice Hall

[8] P. EkmanW. V. FriesenM. O’SullivanA. ChanI. Diacoyanni-TarlatzisK. HeiderR. KrauseW. A. LeCompteT. PitcairnP. E. RicciBitti et al. (1987 Universals and cultural differences in the judgments of facial expressions of emotion Journal of personality and social psychology 53 4 712

[9] S. Frier 2016 Inside facebook’s decision to blow up the like button Available from http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-reactions-chris-cox/ 24/05/2016

[10] A. HogenboomD. BalF. FrasincarM. BalF. de JongU. Kaymak 2013 Exploiting emoticons in sentiment analysis Proceedings of the 28th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing pp. 703 710 ACM

[11] S. A. KingD. Moreggi 2007 Internet self help and support groups: The pros and cons of textbased mutual aid Psychology and the Internet: Intrapersonal, interpersonal and transpersonal implications 221 244

[12] J. KleinY MoonR. W. Picard 2002 This computer responds to user frustration:: Theory, design, and results Interacting with computers 14 2 119 140

[13] P. J. LangM. K. GreenwaldM. M. BradleyA. O. Hamm 1993 Looking at pictures: Affective, facial, visceral, and behavioral reactions Psychophysiology 30 3 261 273

[14] S.-K. Lo 2008 The nonverbal communication functions of emoticons in computer-mediated communication CyberPsychology & Behavior 11 5 595 597

[15] D. W. MassaroP. B. Egan 1996 Perceiving affect from the voice and the face Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 3 2 215 221

[16] M. Nakano 2016 Why and how I created emoji: Interview with shigetaka kurita Available from http://ignition.co/105 24/05/2016

[17] J. ParkV. BarashC. FinkM. Cha 2013 Emoticon style: Interpreting differences in emoticons across cultures Seventh International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media.

[18] H. PrendingerM. Ishizuka 2005 The empathic companion: A character-based interface that addresses users’affective states Applied AI 19 3-4 267 285

[19] L. ReineckeS. Trepte 2014 Authenticity and well-being on social network sites: A two-wave longitudinal study on the effects of online authenticity and the positivity bias in sns communication Computers in Human Behavior 30 95 102

[20] L. Ruan 2011 Meaningful signs?emoticons Theory and Practice in Language Studies 1 1 91 94

[21] K. R. SchererR. BanseH. G. WallbottT. Goldbeck 1991 Vocal cues in emotion encoding and decoding Motivation and emotion 15 2 123 148

[22] P. ShaverJ. SchwartzD. KirsonC. O’connor 1987 Emotion knowledge: further exploration of a prototype approach Journal of personality and social psychology 52 6 1061

[23] K. A. Smith 2015 Assessing the supportiveness of gift emoticons in care scenarios Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems pp. 151 156 ACM

[24] K. A. SmithJ. MasthoffN. TintarevW. Moncur 2014 The development and evaluation of an emotional support algorithm for carers Intelligenza Artificiale.

[25] P SubasicA. Huettner 2001 Affect analysis of text using fuzzy semantic typing Fuzzy Systems, IEEE Transactions on 9 4 483 496

[26] P. SundströmA. StåhlK. Hook 2005 emoto: affectively involving both body and mind CHI’05 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. ACM

[27] D. ThompsonR. Filik 2016 Sarcasm in written communication: Emoticons are efficient markers of intention Journal of ComputerMediated Communication 21 2 105 120

[28] N. TintarevE. ReiterA. WallerR. Black 2014 Natural language generation for augmentative and alternative communication A. StentS. Bangalore Eds.), Natural Language Generation in Interactive Systems 252 277 Cambridge University Press

[29] J. B. WaltherK. P. D’Addario 2001 The impacts of emoticons on message interpretation in computer-mediated communication Social science computer review 19 3 324 347

[30] M. YuasaK. SaitoN. Mukawa 2006 Emoticons convey emotions without cognition of faces: an fmri study CHI’06 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems pp. 1565 1570 ACM