This paper contributes an analysis and formalisation of Damasio’s theory on core consciousness. Three important concepts in this theory are ‘emotion’, ‘feeling’, and ‘feeling a feeling ’ (or core consciousness). In particular, a simulation model is described of the dynamics of basic mechanisms leading via emotion and feeling to core consciousness, and dynamic properties are formally specified that hold for these dynamics at a more global level. These properties have been automatically checked for the simulation model. Moreover, a formal analysis is made of relevant notions of representation used by Damasio. As part of this analysis, specifications of representation relations have been verified and confirmed against the simulation model. 1

The eerie feeling attributed to human-looking robots and animated characters may be a key factor in our perceptual and cognitive discrimination of the human and humanlike. This study applies regression, the generalized linear model (GLM), factor analysis, multidimensional scaling (MDS), and kernel isometric mapping (Isomap) to analyze ratings of 27 emotions of 18 moving figures whose appearance varies along a human likeness continuum. The results indicate (1) Attributions of eerie and creepy better capture our visceral reaction to an uncanny robot than strange. (2) Eerie and creepy are mainly associated with fear but also shocked, disgusted, and nervous. Strange is less strongly associated with emotion. (3) Thus, strange may be more cognitive, while eerie and creepy are more perceptual/emotional. (4) Human features increase ratings of human likeness. (5) Women are slightly more sensitive to eerie and creepy than men; and older people may be more willing to attribute human likeness to a robot despite its eeriness. Categories and Subject Descriptors

Abstract. Emotions can be considered inextricably linked to embodied appraisals- perceptions of bodily states that inform agents of how they are faring in the world relative to their own well-being. Emotionappraisals are thus relational phenomena the relevance of which can be learned or evolutionarily selected for given a reliable coupling between agent-internal and environmental states. An emotion-appraisal attentional disposition permits agents to produce behaviour that exploits such couplings allowing for adaptive agent performance across agentenvironment interactions. This chapter discusses emotions in terms of dynamical processes whereby attentional dispositions are considered central to an understanding of behaviour. The need to reconcile a dynamical systems perspective with an approach that views emotions as attentional dispositions representative of embodied relational phenomena (embodied appraisals) is argued for. Attention and emotion are considered to be features of adaptive agent behaviour that are interdependent in their temporal, structural and organizational relations. Key words: embodied appraisals, dynamical systems, relational phenomena, attentional emotion-appraisal amalgams 1

Within both philosophy and psychology, a new pro-emotion consensus is replacing the old dogmas that emotions disrupt practical rationality, that they are at best arational, if not outright irrational, and that we can understand what is really central to human cognition

In this chapter, I outline and defend a version of concept empiricism. The theory has

www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/

Abstract. In the paper we are proposing a conceptually novel approach to reinforcing (intensifying) own feelings and reproducing (simulating) the emotions felt by the partner during online communication through specially designed system, iFeel_IM!. The core component, Affect Analysis Model, automatically sense nine emotions from text. The detected emotion is stimulated by innovative haptic devices (HaptiHeart, HaptiHug, HaptiTickler, HaptiCooler, and HaptiWarmer) integrated into iFeel_IM! The implemented system can considerably enhance emotionally immersive experience of real-time messaging.

ABSTRACT: Do philosophers and ordinary people conceive of subjective experience in the same way? In this article, we argue that they do not and that the philosophical concept of phenomenal consciousness does not coincide with the folk conception. We first offer experimental support for the hypothesis that philosophers and ordinary people conceive of subjective experience in markedly different ways. We then explore experimentally the folk conception, proposing that for the folk, subjective experience is closely linked to valence. We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for a central issue in the philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness. Our first goal in this article is to examine whether ordinary people (viz. people without training in philosophy or in consciousness studies) and philosophers conceive of subjective experience in a similar way. Philosophers see subjective experiences as including such diverse mental states as seeing red and feeling pain, treating them as having something in common, namely that they are phenomenal—viz. that they share the second-order property that there is “something it is like ” (Nagel 1974) to be in these mental states. We provide suggestive evidence that the folk, by contrast, do not conceive of subjective experience in this way. Our second goal is to explore this folk conception for its own sake. We successively consider two accounts. We first examine whether the folk treat perceptual states differently from bodily sensations or felt emotions, taking the latter, but not the former, to be subjectively experienced. This might be phrased in terms of the folk distinguishing between those states that tell us about the world

[Penultimate draft of chapter in A. Brook and K. Akins (Eds.) Philosophy and

Abstract: Philosophy of psychology takes various forms. Some philosophers of psychology use psychological findings and theories to develop new answers to traditional philosophical issues. A smaller number of philosophers of psychology take their cue from the philosophy of science. They describe and evaluate the discovery heuristics, theories, and explanatory practices endorsed by psychologists. Finally, much philosophy of psychology can be characterized as psychological theorizing. Just like psychologists, philosophers propose empirical theories of specific aspects of our mind, trying to explain relevant psychological phenomena. Focusing mostly on this aspect of the philosophy of psychology, I will consider philosophers ’ contribution to the theoretical development of psychology in four areas: cognitive architecture and modularity (§2); situated, embodied and extended cognition (§3); concepts (§4), and mindreading (§6). 1 Before doing this, however, I will discuss philosophers’ and psychologists ’ views and arguments about the distinctive character of psychology—its mentalistic nature (§1).