Affective Computing for HCI

Not all computers need to pay attention to emotions, or to have emotional abilities. Some machines are useful as rigid tools, and it is fine to keep them that way. However, there are situations where the human-machine interaction could be improved by having machines naturally adapt to their users, and where communication about when, where, how, and how important it is to adapt involves emotional information, possibly including expressions of frustration, confusion, disliking, interest, and more. Affective computing expands humancomputer interaction by including emotional communication together with appropriate means of handling affective information.