Socially Emotional: Using Emotions to Ground Social Interaction

In this paper we address the problem of how emotions ground perception and social interaction. We propose a virtual society in which each agent has its subjective perception of the others, and in which this perception is aimed at focusing a large potential of interaction into the most productive direction. Rather than to focus attention based on a cognitive evaluation of compatibility between different agent’s interests, we argue for using features of appearance, presentation and material exchange as elements in a "social filter" that directs attention in an emotional as opposed to a cognitive (knowledge-based) way. ~,Ve show how such external clues are tight into a hormonal model of emotions for behavior control. At the social level we develop ideas on how emotions play a role in agent interactions (emotional rhetoric) and long-term agent coordination (representation).