Emotion Design 1

This is a record I've had on my computer whilst thinking through the problem of designing the Emotion Engine. As yet I still haven't actually designed it. Ooops. Getting there though. Just trying to remember Prolog and work out how to structure the predicates. Anyway, the below text is from the 25th October:

Emotion Engine Design

Emotion needs to take a current state and a set of actions (may only be one action) and process the actions to give a new emotional state

Emotion is given as a function with several elements. These elements could come from my own approximation given on my blog: happiness, anger, love and hostility
Or alternatively use an adaptation of Ekman's model [1] as noted in AlphaWolves etc: fear, anger, sadness, happiness, disgust and surprise. Ekman's model seems to assume that you feel one emotion at a time.

My model lacks something of Ekmans, however it is simpler in one sense. A new model, improving on my own in light of Ekmans might be this: Happiness, Anger, Love, Hostility, Disgust. It seems unlikely that anything will be able to "surprise" the character, so including this emotional aspect only complicates the processing; also, I have chosen not to give my character fear (both in the interests of simplification and kindness).

The rules that I created for my emotional rules are below. These will need to be manipulated or added to in light of the additional aspect of Disgust.

1. increased anger increases sadness (or decreases happiness)
2. increased sadness doesn't affect anger
3. increased happiness decreases anger
4. the character can be calm (i.e. not angry) without being happy
5. anger should wear off
6. consistently happy character should lead to increased love
7. consistently sad/angry character should lead to hate (anger should affect more than sadness)
8. certain words should evoke love/hate response
9. strong love/hate emotions should lead to increased emotional response elsewhere
* NB. Strong love increases happiness, reduces anger, reduces hostility, reduces disgust
Strong hate decreases happiness and increases hostility
10. love above a certain level should activate flirtatiousness (?)
11. hate above a certain level should activate hostility

New rules:
12. disgust should reduce all other emotions, so that it takes priority

The Prolog action/emotion processor should be created using these rules.

Look ahead: Next step would be the Next Action function, taking received action and new emotional state to decide on a response. Responses would be limited, so it would need to choose most appropriate.

References:
[1] EKMAN, P. 1992. An Argument for Basic Emotions.
Basic Emotions. N. Stein, and Oatley, K.
Hove, UK, Lawrence Erlbaum: 169-200.