Prof. Arvid Kappas, PhD, Jacobs University Bremen

Lecture
                             VORTRAG
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Oesterreichisches Forschungsinstitut 
fuer Artificial Intelligence (OFAI), Freyung 6/6, A-1010 Wien
Tel.: +43-1-5336112-19, Fax: +43-1-5336112-77,
Email: sec@ofai.at

Prof. Arvid Kappas, PhD
Jacobs University Bremen

"Much Ado about Nothing: Are Emotions Really Important?"

The scientific study of emotion has seen ups and downs. 
At the outset of the second decade of the third 
millennium, it is definitely en vogue to study emotion; 
it is common wisdom that affect had been neglected by 
fields as far apart as artificial intelligence and 
economics that finally might understand its importance. 

But as researchers try to get to terms with emotions, 
unexpected hurdles loom large. Separating constructs
such as emotion, cognition, and motivation becomes 
increasingly difficult in the light of experimental 
research and evidence from the neurosciences. 
Similarly, it is now apparent that emotional
components, such as subjective experience, expression, 
and physiological activation have only low cohesion.

What to do? We could pretend that life is simple and 
that every smile expresses happiness, that there are 
only seven emotions, that we always know 
“when to show what to whom”, and that all emotions are
individual in nature. Or we could defect to the behaviorists 
of a century ago – or the neo-behaviorists of a decade 
ago and throw emotions out with the bath water. 

Arvid Kappas will discuss  some of the (current) 
challenges and promises of emotion research.


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Time: Tuesday, 25th January 2011, 18:30 sharp

Location:  Oesterreichisches Forschungsinstitut
fuer Artificial Intelligence, OFAI
Freyung 6, Stiege 6, 1010 Wien.


OESTERREICHISCHES FORSCHUNGSINSTITUT
FUER ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Univ.-Prof. Ing. Dr. Robert Trappl

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