Intelligent Agents with Emotional Intelligence: Current Trends, Challenges, and Future Prospects

TMLR Paper9102 Authors

Abstract:

The development of agents with emotional intelligence is becoming increasingly vital due
to their significant role in human-computer interaction and the growing integration of computational
systems across various sectors of society. Affective computing aims to design
intelligent systems that can recognize, evoke, and express human emotions, thereby emulating
human emotional intelligence. While previous reviews have focused on specific aspects
of this field, there has been limited comprehensive research that encompasses emotion understanding,
elicitation, and expression, along with the related challenges. This survey
addresses this gap by providing a holistic overview of core components of artificial emotion
intelligence into one cohesive map for researchers. It covers emotion understanding
through multimodal data processing, as well as affective cognition, which includes cognitive
appraisal, emotion mapping, and adaptive modulation in decision-making, learning, and reasoning.
Additionally, it addresses the synthesis of emotional expression across text, speech,
and facial modalities to enhance human-agent interaction. This paper identifies and analyzes
the key challenges and issues encountered in the development of affective systems, covering
state-of-the-art methodologies designed to address them. Finally, we highlight promising
future directions, with particular emphasis on the potential of generative technologies to
advance affective computing.

Submission Type: Long submission (more than 12 pages of main content)

Assigned Action Editor: ~Ali_Etemad1

Submission Number: 9102