[EMOXG] XML suggestion for Meta 1: Confidence

Hi,

in fullfillment of ACTION-28 
(http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/emotion/group/tracker/actions/28), I 
make a suggestion for

Meta 1: Confidence / probability
================================

http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/emotion/XGR-requirements/#Confidence 
states:
"The emotion markup must provide a representation of the degree of 
confidence or probability that a certain element of the representation 
is correct. It must be possible to indicate the confidence for each 
element of the representation separately: e.g., the confidence that the 
category is indeed X is independent from the confidence that its 
intensity or its timing is correctly indicated."

I am going to use "confidence" throughout, somehow I like it better than 
"probability", but I have no strong feelings about it either.

I see confidence as another example of a (unipolar) scale value. It can 
be realised as a simple attribute that can be applied to most elements 
in the annotation, at least to:

     * Core 2. Emotion categories
 -- confidence that the given category is correct
     * Core 3. Emotion dimensions
 -- confidence that an individual dimension is correctly set, and/or 
that all dimensions together are correctly stated
     * Core 4. Appraisals related to the emotion
 -- same as for Core 3.
     * Core 5. Action tendencies
 -- same as for Core 3.
     * Core 7. Emotion intensity
 -- confidence that the emotion has the intensity as stated.


I am not sure about the following:
     * Core 1. Type of emotion-related phenomenon
 -- confidence that the phenomenon has the type indicated?
     * Core 6. Multiple and/or complex emotions
 -- confidence that there are multiple emotions?
     * Core 8. Emotion timing
 -- confidence that the timing is as stated?
     * Meta 2. Modality
 -- confidence that the emotion is expressed through the given modality?

I believe the following information should not have a confidence associated:
     * Links 1. Links to media
     * Links 2. Position on a time line in externally linked objects
     * Links 3. The semantics of links to the "rest of the world"
     * Global 0. A generic mechanism to represent global metadata

It doesn't seem to make sense to say this is "probably" the media file 
that I am annotating, etc.


Examples
========

     * Core 2. Emotion categories

<category set="myset" name="surprise" confidence="very much"/>

A simple example indicating, using a verbal scale value, that the 
confidence is very high that surprise is the emotion to annotate.

     * Core 3. Emotion dimensions

      <dimensions set="Arousal-and-Valence">
          <arousal value="very much" confidence="0.9"/>
          <valence value="slightly positive" confidence="0.3"/>
      </dimensions>

An example using continuous scale values for confidence to indicate that 
  the annotation of high arousal is probably correct, but the annotation 
of slightly positive valence may or may not be correct. Note that the 
choice of verbal vs. numeric scales between the emotion dimension and 
the confidence is totally independent, i.e. it is fully possible to use 
verbally specified emotion dimensions with numerically specified 
confidences (as in this example) or any other combination of verbal and 
numeric scales.

     * Core 4. Appraisals related to the emotion

      <appraisals set="Scherer">
          <novelty value="as much as possible" confidence="medium"/>
          <intrinsic-pleasantness value="very negative" confidence="as 
much as possible"/>
          <goal-conduciveness value="not at all" confidence="much"/>
      </appraisals>

An example of appraisals using verbal scales for both the appraisal 
dimensions themselves and for the confidence. Note that the confidence 
is always unipolar, but that some of the appraisal dimensions are bipolar.


     * Core 5. Action tendencies

      <action-tendencies set="Frijda" confidence="0.8">
          <approach activation="0.9"/>
          <avoidance activation="0.0"/>
          <being-with activation="0.9"/>
      </action-tendencies>

The example shows confidence as an attribute of the entire group of 
action tendencies; the confidence indicated (rather high) therefore 
applies to all action tendencies contained.

     * Core 7. Emotion intensity

      <intensity value="0.1" confidence="0.8"/>

A high confidence that the emotion has a low intensity.


Combinations of the above
-------------------------

Obviously an emotional annotation can be a combination of some or all of 
the above, as in the following examples.

<emotion>
     <intensity value="0.1" confidence="0.8"/>
     <category set="everyday" name="boredom" confidence="0.1"/>
</emotion>

The intensity of the emotion is quite probably low, but if we have to 
guess, we would say it's boredom.

<emotion>
     <intensity value="0.1" confidence="0.8"/>
     <category set="everyday" name="boredom" confidence="0.1"/>
     <dimensions set="Arousal-and-Valence">
         <arousal value="0.4" confidence="0.8"/>
         <valence value="-0.1" confidence="0.5"/>
     </dimensions>
</emotion>

In addition, we state that the arousal is slightly below medium (which 
would be 0.5), and we are half-way confident that valence is slightly 
negative.

<emotion>
     <intensity value="0.1" confidence="0.8"/>
     <category set="everyday" name="boredom" confidence="0.1"/>
     <dimensions set="Arousal-and-Valence">
         <arousal value="0.4" confidence="0.8"/>
         <valence value="-0.1" confidence="0.5"/>
     </dimensions>
     <appraisals set="Scherer">
         <novelty value="0.0” confidence="1.0"/>
     </appraisals>
</emotion>

In addition, we are absolutely certain that no new thing has currently 
happened.

<emotion>
     <intensity value="0.1" confidence="0.8"/>
     <category set="everyday" name="boredom" confidence="0.1"/>
     <dimensions set="Arousal-and-Valence">
         <arousal value="0.4" confidence="0.8"/>
         <valence value="-0.1" confidence="0.5"/>
     </dimensions>
     <appraisals set="Scherer">
         <novelty value="0.0” confidence="1.0"/>
     </appraisals>
     <action-tendencies set="Frijda">
         <approach activation="0.1" confidence="0.6"/>
          <avoidance activation="0.1" confidence="0.4"/>
          <being-with activation="0.1" confidence="0.5"/>
     </action-tendencies>
</emotion>

In addition, we think but are not sure that there is only a very low 
tendency to act in any of the available ways.

Looking forward to comments, best regards,
Marc


Marc Schroeder schrieb:
> 
> (I am sending this directly to the public list so that people have a 
> chance to see this; it has not yet been discussed in the small group. 
> The idea is to get initial ideas about all requirements up on the table 
> quickly, and then to go through them over the next weeks and months, by 
> emails in the small group and in phone meetings)
> 
> 
> This is a discussion and suggestion for possible realisations of the 
> EmotionML requirements [1] Core 3, Core 4, Core 5, and Core 7, which 
> have in common that they rely on scale values.
> 
> This is in response to the action item [2] agreed during the last phone 
> conference.
> 
> As agreed, the syntax is inspired by the provisional consensus example 
> for Core 2 (Emotion Category):
> 
> <emotion>
>     <category set="everyday" name="pleasure" confidence "0.9"/>
> </emotion>
> 
> 
> Generic proposal regarding scale values
> ---------------------------------------
> 
> The issue of how to describe scale values was already discussed to some 
> extent in an email thread initiated by Bill [3]. Attempting a summary of 
> the discussion, it would appear that:
> 
> * scales are either unipolar (from "not" to "a lot") or bipolar (from 
> "very negative" via "neutral" to "very positive");
> * some use cases (reasoning, generation) usually describe the position 
> on a scale using continuous values;
> * other use cases (manual labelling) usually use discrete, ordinal 
> values to describe the position on a scale;
> * there are psychological reasons why it is not valid to map ordinal 
> values onto a numerical scale;
> * however, interoperability considerations will sometimes *require* a 
> mapping between ordinal and numerical scales;
> * for numerical scales, interoperability considerations push towards a 
> pre-defined range such as [0,1] or [-1,1];
> * exaggerations (e.g., cartoon-like expressions in generation) may push 
> towards values beyond the limits of that range.
> 
> The following issues were also introduced in the discussion but seem not 
> to find consensus support:
> - qualifications of scale values relative to a person ("a low amount of 
> anger for a New Yorker")
> - allowing for units ("3 felicitons") that may possibly be defined in 
> the future;
> - flexibility of numerical ranges in view of user-specific needs (was 
> contradicted on the basis of interoperability).
> 
> 
> Based on these constraints it seems reasonable to propose:
> 
> a) numerical scales with a pre-defined range ([0,1] for unipolar, [-1,1] 
> for bipolar scales) which, however, should sometimes not be strictly 
> enforced;
> 
> b) a pre-defined set of discrete values with ordinal ordering, e.g. as 
> seven points:
> 
>   i) for unipolar scales:
>           not at all
>           very little
>           little
>           medium
>           much
>           very much
>           as much as possible
> 
>   ii) for bipolar scales:
>           very negative
>           negative
>           slightly negative
>           neutral
>           slightly positive
>           positive
>           very positive
> 
> Note that I am not attached to the number nor the names of values; I 
> have chosen them ad hoc -- if someone has a well-founded alternative, 
> please bring it forward.
> 
> Users would be free to use only some of these values if they need less 
> than seven ordinal points. A mapping may be introduced in the future 
> with the currently optional requirement Onto 1 (Mapping...). For the 
> moment, users who need a mapping would have to map from ordinal to 
> numerical values using the method of their choice.
> 
> 
> Concretely, I suggest to realise scales as attribute-value pairs. An 
> attribute should be specific about being either a unipolar or a bipolar 
> scale. Unipolar scales can hold values that are either a floating point 
> number from 0 to 1, or one of the "unipolar" strings listed above, e.g.
> 
> <myElement myUnipolarScale="0.234"/>
> <myElement myUnipolarScale="very little"/>
> 
> Similarly, a bipolar scale could hold values that are either a floating 
> point number from -1 to 1, or one of the "bipolar" strings listed above, 
> e.g.:
> <myElement myBipolarScale="-0.1"/>
> <myElement myBipolarScale="slightly negative"/>
> 
> 
> Working on this basis, the following proposals for Core 3, 4, 5, and 7 
> become rather simple.
> 
> 
> 
> Core 3: Emotion dimensions
> --------------------------
> 
> citing [1]: "... In emotion psychology, a small number of 2-4 emotion 
> dimensions is considered to cover the most essential aspects of people's 
> emotion concepts and subjective experience. A dimension is a unipolar or 
> bipolar continuous scale.
> As for emotion categories, it is not possible to predefine a normative 
> set of dimensions. Instead, the language should provide a "default" set 
> of dimensions, that can be used if there are no specific application 
> constraints, but allow the user to "plug in" a custom set of dimensions 
> if needed."
> 
> 
> A possible syntax similar to the category example could look as follows:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <dimensions set="FontaineSchererRoeschEllsworth"
>                 valence="(bipolar-scale)"
>                 potency="(unipolar-scale)"
>                 arousal="(unipolar-scale)"
>                 unpredictability="(unipolar-scale)" />
> </emotion>
> 
> Here, the value of the "set" attribute would determine the names of the 
> attributes that can occur.
> 
> Examples:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <category set="everyday" name="excited"/>
>     <dimensions set="Arousal-and-Valence"
>                 arousal="0.9"
>                 valence="0.2"/>
> </emotion>
> 
> 
> Or using verbal scale values:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <category set="everyday name="excited"/>
>     <dimensions set="Arousal-and-Valence"
>                 arousal="very much"
>                 valence="slightly positive"/>
> </emotion>
> 
> 
> This approach groups all dimensions into a single element, which means 
> that meta-annotation such as confidence (Meta 1) can only be applied to 
> all dimensions at once, as in:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <dimensions set="Arousal-and-Valence"
>                 arousal="very much"
>                 valence="slightly positive"
>                 confidence="0.5"/>
> </emotion>
> 
> In other words, with this method we can not express that we are sure the 
> guy is very aroused but we are unsure about his valence. If 
> meta-information should be annotated on each dimension separately, the 
> following more explicit structure would be more appropriate:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <dimensions set="Arousal-and-Valence">
>         <arousal value="very much" confidence="0.9"/>
>         <valence value="slightly positive" confidence="0.3"/>
>     </dimensions>
> </emotion>
> 
> 
> Core 4: Appraisals
> ------------------
> 
> citing [1]: "... . Appraisal is a core concept in cognitive emotion 
> psychology; cognitive emotion theories describe in detail which 
> appraisals of "things in the world" lead to which emotions. 
> Syntactically, appraisals may be represented as unipolar or bipolar 
> scales."
> 
> 
> The proposed solution is exactly the same as for Core 3, i.e.:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <appraisals set="Scherer"
>                 novelty="(unipolar-scale)"
>                 intrinsic-pleasantness="(bipolar-scale)"
>                 ...
>                 goal-conduciveness="(unipolar-scale)"/>
> </emotion>
> 
> Or else, to allow for individual meta-annotation:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <appraisals set="Scherer">
>         <novelty value="(unipolar-scale)"/>
>         <intrinsic-pleasantness value="(bipolar-scale)"/>
>                 ...
>         <goal-conduciveness value="(unipolar-scale)"/>
>      </appraisals>
> </emotion>
> 
> 
> Core 5: Action tendencies
> -------------------------
> 
> citing [1]: "The emotion markup must provide a possibility to 
> characterise emotions in terms of the action tendencies linked to them.
> For example (Frijda, 1986, p. 88, Table 2.1), desire is linked to a 
> tendency to approach, fear is linked to a tendency to avoid, etc.
> Activation, as defined by Frijda (1986, pp. 90-94), is the readiness to 
> act according to a specific action tendency. It is a degree, and should 
> be represented by a scale value."
> 
> Again, the same approach can be proposed:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <action-tendencies set="Frijda"
>         approach="(unipolar scale)"
>         avoidance="(unipolar scale)"
>         being-with="(unipolar scale)"
>         ...
>         />
> </emotion>
> 
> Or with more explicit structure, e.g.:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <action-tendencies set="Frijda">
>         <approach activation="(unipolar scale)"/>
>         <avoidance activation="(unipolar scale)"/>
>         <being-with activation="(unipolar scale)"/>
>         ...
>     </action-tendencies>
> </emotion>
> 
> 
> Core 7: Emotion intensity
> -------------------------
> 
> citing [1]: "The emotion markup must provide an emotion attribute to 
> represent the intensity of an emotion. The intensity is a unipolar scale."
> 
> A typical use of intensity is in combination with a category. However, 
> in some emotion models, the emotion's intensity can also be used in 
> combination with a position in emotion dimension space. Therefore, 
> intensity must be specified independently of category. One possible 
> solution is this:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <intensity value="(unipolar scale)"/>
> </emotion>
> 
> Making intensity an explicit element makes it possible to add 
> meta-information, which would not be possible if intensity was an 
> attribute, e.g. of the <emotion> tag itself.
> 
> For example, expressing a high confidence that the intensity is low, but 
> only a vague idea what kind of emotion it may be:
> 
> <emotion>
>     <intensity value="0.1" confidence="0.8"/>
>     <category set="everyday" name="boredom" confidence="0.1"/>
> </emotion>
> 
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/emotion/XGR-requirements/
> [2] http://www.w3.org/2008/07/03-emotion-minutes.html#action06
> [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xg-emotion/2008May/0005.html

-- 
Dr. Marc Schröder, Senior Researcher at DFKI GmbH
Coordinator EU FP7 Project SEMAINE http://www.semaine-project.eu
Chair W3C Emotion ML Incubator http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/emotion
Portal Editor http://emotion-research.net
Team Leader DFKI Speech Group http://mary.dfki.de
Project Leader DFG project PAVOQUE http://mary.dfki.de/pavoque

Homepage: http://www.dfki.de/~schroed
Email: schroed@dfki.de
Phone: +49-681-302-5303
Postal address: DFKI GmbH, Campus D3_2, Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3, D-66123 
Saarbrücken, Germany
--
Official DFKI coordinates:
Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH
Trippstadter Strasse 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
Geschaeftsfuehrung:
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster (Vorsitzender)
Dr. Walter Olthoff
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes
Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313

Received on Tuesday, 5 August 2008 15:15:08 UTC