Emotions Studied by Computer Scientists and Psychologists — A Complementary Perspective

Affective scientists from different fields work together to describe, understand, and harness human emotions. One specific collaboration between computer scientists and psychologists created the new field of affective computing. Computer scientists bring to the field perspective resulting from education in Physical Sciences and Engineering, whereas psychologists from Social Sciences and Humanities. This article first addresses three issues in studying emotions that are usually approached differently in psychology and computer science: defining emotions, ethical considerations, and exploring emotional data. With the bibliometric data, we show that interdisciplinary teams are exceptions, which may limit the scope of research on emotions. Next, we argue that presented different perspectives complement rather than exclude each other. Thus, we advocate for creating multidisciplinary initiatives that bring unique benefits. Our perspective provides an additional impulse to bring our fields together and encourage multidisciplinary discussions on advancing the science of emotions.