Modeling the cognitive antecedents and consequences of emotion

Abstract

Summary As cognitive systems research moves beyond simple, static, and nonsocial problem solving, researchers must increasingly confront the challenge of how to allocate and focus mental resources in the face of other (potentially adversarial) social actors, conflicting goals, and events that unfold with uncertainty across a variety of timescales. This leads us naturally into the domain of emotion. Emotions arise from social interaction. They arise from the dissonance we feel between competing goals and conflicting interpretations of the world around us. They arise from the need to make moment-to-moment decisions in the face of a dynamic and uncertain world where we have limited control over direction and time-course of future events. Emotion researchers have long argued that emotions have evolved to help us successfully navigate an uncertain, social and dynamic world. This special issue illustrates how emotion research can spur the development of cognitive systems with this, until now, uniquely human ability.