Omnemotion: the propagation of emotions

Abstract

This paper presents an interactive installation exploring social emotional contagion. Based on the major psychological studies and computational models related to emotions used in the field of affective computing, algorithms are used to simulate the propagation of emotions through artificial characters in an artificial environment. The user interacts with the application on a tablet on which it is possible to trigger events in a 3D artificial world. Those events make the characters evolving in this world experience emotions and share them through the process of emotional contagion. The propagation of emotions through the characters is instantly graphically projected on a wall in front of the user.