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Pedagogical Soap 145EmotionalAppraisalEventsProb.Solving(Coping)DialogPhysicalFocusBehaviorFigure 17.2.Agent Architecture.it intends to communicate, which may include an intent to project an associatedemotion. This communication may be suggestive of certain nonverbalbehavior for the agent’s face, arms, hands etc. However, the agent’s emotionalstate derived from emotional appraisal may suggest quite different behaviors.Physical focus mediates this contention.A simple example demonstrates how some of these pathways work. Ginamay ask Carmen why her daughter is having temper tantrums. Feeling anxiousabout being judged a bad mother, Carmen copes (problem solving) bydismissing the significance of the tantrums (dialog model): “She is just beingbabyish, she wants attention.” Based on Carmen’s dialog and emotionalstate, physical focus selects relevant behaviors (e.g., fidgeting with her hands).Her dialog also feeds back to emotional appraisal. She may now feel guiltyfor “de-humanizing” her child, may physically display that feeling (physicalfocus) and then go on to openly blame herself. Carmen can go through this sequenceof interactions solely based on the flux in her emotional reaction to herown behavior. Gina, meanwhile, will emotionally appraise Carmen’s seemingcallousness and briefly reveal shock (e.g., by raised eyebrows), but that behaviormay quickly be overridden if her dialog model decides to project sympathy.Emotional appraisal plays a key role in shaping how the agents interact andhow the user interacts with Carmen. The appraisal model draws on the researchof Richard Lazarus (1991). In the Lazarus model, emotions flow out ofcognitive appraisal and management of the person-environment relationship.Appraisal of events in terms of their significance to the individual leads to emotionsand tendencies to cope in certain ways. The appraisal process is brokeninto two classes. Primary appraisal establishes an event’s relevance. Secondaryappraisal addresses the options available to the agent for coping with the event.One of the key steps in primary appraisal is to determine an individual’s egoinvolvement: how an event impacts the agent’s collection of individual com-