Affective Mimetics, Emotional Information Space, and Metaverse

Abstract

Current technology design pursues applying human-like features to AI technologies. These attempts have faced many challenges due to the essential complexities of the human mind. Cognitive mimetics is a design approach to mimic human information processes in designing intelligent technologies. The focus is on mimicking cognition, human knowledge structures, and represented mental information contents which addresses a fundamental issue in technology design. However, cognition is one aspect of information processing in the human mind. Affective information processing also plays an essential role in addressing the meaningfulness of cognitive processes. This paper discusses affective mimetics (extended from cognitive mimetics with conceptual engineering) as a design approach to designing intelligent and human-like entities for AI technologies. Natural framework sources for affective mimetics are emotional information spaces referring to emotionally meaningful objects around a person. The potential of affective mimetics and emotional information spaces in directing the design of metaverse is utilised as an illustrative example.