Diving Deep Into Affective Computing With My Privacy Perspective

During my Master's program at UMBC, while selecting courses, I came across one called Affective Computing. I was unfamiliar with the term, so I conducted some research and discovered that affective computing is an interdisciplinary field that encompasses computer science, psychology, and cognitive science. As someone who has always been fascinated by human psychology, I was intrigued by the combination of psychology and HCI and wanted to explore the emotional aspect of human-computer interaction. I was curious about how computers can be trained to interact with people who have different personalities, taking into account factors such as the mode of interaction, age differences, cultural differences, social settings, and mood variations.

The Affective Computing course was well-structured and included weekly readings of important literature in the field of affective computing, from the first use of the term in 1997 to the present day.

I decided to take the course during my third semester of my Master's degree while I was deeply immersed in the field of usable privacy. I realized that studying affective computing would enhance my understanding of privacy, so I searched for literature that intersected the two fields, but found very little. This inspired me to start a blog series, where I document my journey of learning about affective computing, analyzing its applications and scenarios, and exploring its potential, limitations, and future.

 
 

01. Affective Computing

Feb06 • 5 min read


02. Ethics & Privacy in Affective Computing

Feb13 • 4 min read


03. Assessing Affective Interaction Agents With Privacy

Feb20 • 5 min read


04. The Affective Loop

Feb27 • 4 min read


05. Mental Health Perspective of Affective Computing

Mar06• 5 min read


06. Affect as Information

Mar13• 3 min read


07. Reflective Informatics

Mar20• 3 min read


08. Behavioral Synchrony

Mar27• 4 min read