Modeling the dynamics of mood and depression

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Fiemke Both, Mark Hoogendoorn, Michel Klein, Jan Treur

Published: 01 Jun 2008, Last Modified: 07 Jan 2026Proc. of the 18th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, ECAI 2008EveryoneRevisionsBibTeXCC BY-SA 4.0
Abstract: Both for developing human-like virtual agents and for developing intelligent systems that make use of knowledge about the emotional state of the user, it is important to model the mood of a person. In this paper, a model for simulating the dynamics of mood is presented, based on psychological theories about a unipolar clinical depression. The model was analyzed mathematically and by means of simulations, and it was shown that the model exhibits the most important characteristics of the theories. It shows how stress factors under some conditions can lead to a depression, while it will not lead to a depression under other conditions.