The Affective Tigger : a study on the construction of an emotionally reactive toy

The Affective Tigger is a toy that responds to the user or playmate in a natural and emotive manner. Specifically, the Affective Tigger recognizes and reacts to the emotion the child is exhibiting. For example, when the child is 'happily' playing with the Affective Tigger, she might move and hold him in a manner that expresses this happiness: she might bounce him along the floor, or hug and kiss him. The Affective Tigger senses this physical interaction, for example he might recognize that the child is bouncing him, and outwardly expresses his own happiness in turn. In this manner, the Affective Tigger is both mimicking the mood expressed by the child and reacting to a behavior exhibited by the child, namely bouncing him. The Affective Tigger was evaluated by assessing the appropriateness of his responses to the child. In twelve play sessions, children were invited into the MIT Media Laboratory to play with the Affective Tigger. The results from these trials illustrated that three year olds are just beginning to recognize emotions in others, four year olds are in the process of discovering an awareness of 'other', and five year old children are well on their way to developing empathy and other advanced emotional responses. It was also shown that a simple sensor-based behavior system such as the one in the Affective Tigger is sufficient to produce the compelling 'appearance' that the Affective Tigger has feelings of his own. The big question, however, remains unanswered, could a child learn, from repeated exposure playing with the Affective Tigger, to recognize feelings and to respond appropriately to them?

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. Program In Media Arts and Sciences.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Kirsch, Dana, 1975-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rosalind W. Picard.

• Architecture. Program In Media Arts and Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/61840

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/61840