Surprise

About: Surprise is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4371 publications have been published within this topic receiving 99386 citations.

Surprise Search: Beyond Objectives and Novelty

Abstract: Grounded in the divergent search paradigm and inspired by the principle of surprise for unconventional discovery in computational creativity, this paper introduces surprise search as a new method of evolutionary divergent search. Surprise search is tested in two robot navigation tasks and compared against objective-based evolutionary search and novelty search. The key findings of this paper reveal that surprise search is advantageous compared to the other two search processes. It outperforms objective search and it is as efficient as novelty search in both tasks examined. Most importantly, surprise search is, on average, faster and more robust in solving the navigation problem compared to objective and novelty search. Our analysis reveals that surprise search explores the behavioral space more extensively and yields higher population diversity compared to novelty search.

Perception of basic emotions in music: Culture-specific or multicultural?

Abstract: The perception of basic emotions such as happy/sad seems to be a human invariant and as such detached from musical experience. On the other hand, there is evidence for cultural specificity: recognition of emotional cues is enhanced if the stimuli and the participants stem from the same culture. A cross-cultural study investigated the following research questions: (1) How are six basic universal emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise) perceivable in music unknown to listeners with different cultural backgrounds?; and (2) Which particular aspects of musical emotions show similarities and differences across cultural boundaries? In a cross-cultural study, 18 musical segments, representing six basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise) were presented to subjects from Western Europe (Germany and Norway) and Asia (South Korea and Indonesia). Results give evidence for a pan-cultural emotional sentience in music. However, there were distinct cultural, emotion and item...

The use of computer games in classroom environment

Abstract: As part of the educational use of ICT, digital games can be learning tools, motivators and generators of curiosity and as a result an effective means of optimising student learning and performance in daily educational practice. The positive relationship between learning and students' engagement while using digital games has been confirmed by various independent studies over the years. Thus, the integration of digital games at different levels of education for teaching multiple learning objects comes as no surprise. Despite the many studies on the learning and motivational effects of digital games, teaching with digital games is not yet widespread in secondary education. Current research emphasises that most of these factors appear to stem from difficulties with the implementation of games in classroom settings. Problems with technology, the cost/expense of games/equipment, the lack of technical support are defined as some of the barriers to the addition of games and simulations in education.

Neural responses to ambiguity involve domain-general and domain-specific emotion processing systems

Abstract: Extant research has examined the process of decision making under uncertainty, specifically in situations of ambiguity. However, much of this work has been conducted in the context of semantic and low-level visual processing. An open question is whether ambiguity in social signals e.g., emotional facial expressions is processed similarly or whether a unique set of processors come on-line to resolve ambiguity in a social context. Our work has examined ambiguity using surprised facial expressions, as they have predicted both positive and negative outcomes in the past. Specifically, whereas some people tended to interpret surprise as negatively valenced, others tended toward a more positive interpretation. Here, we examined neural responses to social ambiguity using faces surprise and nonface emotional scenes International Affective Picture System. Moreover, we examined whether these effects are specific to ambiguity resolution i.e., judgments about the ambiguity or whether similar effects would be demonstrated for incidental judgments e.g., nonvalence judgments about ambiguously valenced stimuli. We found that a distinct task control i.e., cingulo-opercular network was more active when resolving ambiguity. We also found that activity in the ventral amygdala was greater to faces and scenes that were rated explicitly along the dimension of valence, consistent with findings that the ventral amygdala tracks valence. Taken together, there is a complex neural architecture that supports decision making in the presence of ambiguity: a a core set of cortical structures engaged for explicit ambiguity processing across stimulus boundaries and b other dedicated circuits for biologically relevant learning situations involving faces.

Making Faces: Age and Emotion Differences in the Posing of Emotional Expressions

Abstract: Institute for the Study of Child Development University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Preschool children, 2 to 5 years of age, and adults posed the six facial expressions of happiness, surprise, anger, fear, sadness, and disgust before a videotape camera. Their poses were scored subse- quently using the MAX system. The number of poses that included all components of the target expression (complete expressions) as well as the frequency of those that included only some of the components of the target expressions (partial expressions) were analyzed. Results indicated that 2- year-olds as a group failed to pose any face. Three-year-olds were a transitional group, posing happi- ness and surprise expressions but none of the remaining faces to any degree. Four- and 5-year-olds were similar to one another and differed from adults only on surprise and anger expressions. Adults were able to pose both these expressions. No group, including adults, posed fear and disgust well. Posing of happiness showed no change after 3 years of age. Consistent differences between partial and complete poses were observed particularly for the negative expressions of sadness, fear, and disgust. Implications of these results for socialization theories of emotion are discussed. Most recent research efforts in the study of children's emo- tional development have either traced the developmental time- table of spontaneous facial expressions or documented the abil- ity of infants and children to discriminate and recognize facial expressions. In general, the underlying model of such research has been biological (Darwin, 1872; Ekman, Friesen, & Ells- worth, 1972; Emde, Gaensbauer, & Harmon, 1976; Izard, 1977; Tomkins, 1962, 1963). Consequently, research has fo- cused on the constant, universal, and holistic aspects of sponta- neous facial expression. However, the ability to voluntarily pose facial expressions is important to issues in the socialization of emotion; for example, the issues of when and how well children can modulate and con- trol their emotional expressions (Lewis & Michalson, 1983). Such ability seems to be a basic skill underlying more complex types of emotional management techniques, such as the mask- ing of facial expressions in order to conform to display rules or to practice deception (Ekman, 1985; Saarni, 1985). Develop- mental research on any aspect of expression management is scarce, but it seems likely that developmental differences exist even in the ability to pose faces. It has been shown that some expressions are easier to pose than others, even among adults (Thompson & Meltzer, 1964). Similar, and perhaps other, age- This research was supported by a W. T. Grant Foundation grant to Michael Lewis, National Institute of Child Health and Human Develop- ment Grant 17205 to Margaret Wolan Sullivan, and a Rutgers Medical School Summer Fellowship to Arthur Vasen. We wish to thank Norma Goetz for data collection and Despi Had- zimichalis for general assistance in preparation of the manuscript. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mi- chael Lewis, Institute for the Study of Child Development/Department of Pediatrics, UMDNJ-Rutgers Medical School, Medical Education Building CN19, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903. 690 related differences may be observable in children. In this article we are concerned with the production of facial expression (hereinafter referred to as