Emotions during learning: The first steps toward an affect sensitive intelligent tutoring system
Scotty D. Craig, Sidney K. D’Mello, Barry Gholson, Amy Witherspoon, Jeremiah Sullins, Arthur C. Graesser · 2004
Abstract. In an attempt to discover links between learning and emotions, this study adopted an emote-aloud procedure where participants were recorded as they verbalized their affective states while interacting with an intelligent tutoring system, AutoTutor. Participants ’ facial expressions were coding using the Facial Action Coding System and analyzed using association rule mining techniques. The resulting rules are discussed along with implications to the larger project of improving the AutoTutor system into a nonintrusive affect sensitive intelligent tutoring system. While the 20 th century has been ripe with learning theory, these theories have mostly ignored the importance of the link between a persons emotions or affective states and learning (Meyer, & Turner, 2002). However, toward the end of the twentieth century, emotions started to get more attention. Some seminal contributions to the literature include the facial action coding system by Ekman & Friesen (1978), Stein and Levine’s (1991) theory of goals and emotion, Cognitive theory of Emotion (Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988), and Russell’s (2003) theory of emotion. Ekman and Friesen (1978) highlighted the expressive aspects of emotions with their Facial Action Coding System that allowed for “basic emotions ” to be identified by coding specific facial behaviors based on the muscles that produce them. Each movement in the face is referred to as an action unit. There are approximately 58 action units. These prototypical facial patterns were used to identify the emotions of happiness, sadness, surprise, disgust, anger, and fear (Ekman & Friesen, 1978; Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002). The coding system was tested primarily on static pictures rather than on changing expressions over time. Unfortunately, for those researchers interesting in the role of emotions in learning, it is doubtful whether these 6 emotions are frequent and functionally significant in the learning process (Kapoor,Mota, & Picard, 2001). More generally, some researchers have challenged the adequacy of basing a complete theory of emotions on these