Emotion is a fundamental component of being human. Joy, hate, anger, and pride, among the plethora of other emotions, motivate action and add meaning and richness to virtually all human experience. Traditionally, human-computer interaction has been viewed as the “ultimate ” exception: Users must discard their emotional selves to work efficiently and rationality with computers, the quintessentially unemotional artifact. Emotion seemed at best marginally relevant to human-computer interaction―and at worst oxymoronic. Recent research in psychology and technology suggests a very different view of the relationship between humans, computers, and emotion. After a long period of dormancy and confusion, there has been an explosion of research on the psychology of emotion (Gross, 1999). Emotion is no longer seen as limited to the occasional outburst of fury when a computer crashes inexplicably, excitement when a videogame character leaps past an obstacle, or frustration at an incomprehensible error message. It is now understood that a wide range of emotions plays a critical role in every computer-related, goal-directed activity, from developing a 3-D CAD model and running calculations on a spreadsheet, to searching the Web and sending an email, to making an online purchase and playing solitaire. Indeed, many psychologists now argue that it is

During the last two decades, researchers have collected a decisive amount of experimental evidence about the fundamental role of Emotion on cognitive processing. Emotional phenomena have been correlated with effective decision-making processes, memory, learning and other high-level cognitive capabilities and skills (e.g. risk assessment). In this paper we will describe an ongoing work that aims to design new Agent Architectures influenced by what has been learned in psychology and neurosciences about Emotion-cognition interaction. In particular, we will present an Agent architecture that includes several emotional-like mechanisms, namely: emotional evaluation functions, Emotion--biased processing, emotional tagging and mood congruent memory. These emotional-like mechanisms are intended to increase the performance and adaptability of Agents operating in real-time environments. We will also introduce Pyrosim, a MAS platform we have developed to serve as an appropriate test-bed for Emotional-based Architectures.

is difficult. In this article we develop a cognitive framework to characterize sense-making in the implementation process that is especially relevant for recent education policy initiatives, such as standards-based reforms that press for tremendous changes in classroom instruction. From a cognitive perspective, a key dimension of the implementation process is whether, and in what ways, implementing agents come to understand their practice, potentially changing their beliefs and attitudes in the process. We draw on theoretical and empirical literature to develop a cognitive perspective on implementation. We review the contribution of cognitive science frames to implementation research and identify areas where cognitive science can make additional contributions.

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