Emotional Ambient Media

Abstract

The “medium is the message”: nowadays the medium as such is non-distinguishable from its presentation environment. However, what is the medium in an ambient environment, when the environment is smart, recognizes emotions, and at the same time responsive? Emotions have had an inferior role in philosophy, psychology, art, and nowadays in media technology. In philosophy and psychology many researchers devoted their work to the question what emotions are, and how they can be modeled, ranging from common-sense theories, theories that emotions are simply physiological disturbances, and the many behavior theories describing emotions providing a much more comprehensive view on emotions (Solomon, 1977). In the age of ambient media, where media technology is embedded seamlessly and hidden into the natural environment of the consumer, the view towards media is changing. The modality how emotions are experienced and the technology to recognize and simulate emotions are changing. To support the theories within the scope of this chapter, a case study – the emotional ambient responsive character – has been performed. The concept was realized as a simple interactive game responding to human emotions. Within this book section, we present a technical oriented view towards recognizing, simulating, and binding emotions in ambient media systems. A case-study for an emotion recognition and response system is presented. The system integrates the content and emotion recognition elements.