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Theory & Psychology, Vol. 14, No. 6, 755-776 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0959354304048105

Can Machines Adequately Simulate Human Emotion?

A Test of Four Theories of Emotion

Matthew P. Spackman

Brigham Young University, matt_spackman{at}byu.edu

In the spirit of the Turing test, machines modeled on four theories of emotion are placed in a naturalistic thought experiment and their ability to simulate human emotion is evaluated. Four simulators based on the Darwinian, Jamesian, cognitivist and social constructionist theories of emotion are proposed. Each of the simulators is found to be inadequate to the task. The four theories are deficient because none of them offers explanations for how the simulators could make sense of their particular situations and therefore simulate emotions appropriate to them. It is suggested that this ability to make sense of the particular is at least essential to human emotion and may be precisely what emotions enable persons to do.

Key Words: appraisal • artificial intelligence • cognition • emotion • social construction


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