Kansei information in humans-robots interaction

The presenters' group at Tokyo Institute of Technology has been studying on Kansei (affective computing) information in Humans-Robots interaction. In the traditional study on human-robot (or man-machine) interaction, mostly one to one communication has been stressed. In the near future, however, a society consisting of many humans and many robots (or machines) should be investigated, where each individual (human or robot or machine) is called an agent and they are connected by internet. Such a society is usually called a multi-agent society. To realize smooth communication in such a multi-agent society, various topics should be investigated and one of the most important topics is Kansei information processing including emotion and/or atmosphere recognition which are stressed in this keynote speech. The Kansei engineering has been studied originally in Japan. Nowadays it is widely accepted in all over the world and is sometimes referred to affective engineering or affective computing.