Textual emotion communication with non-verbal symbols in online environments

Abstract

Recently computer mediated communication became a popular way of interaction. Unfortunately nonverbal elements are normally absent in these online communications. This paper describes the results of a study carried out to determine the use of textual symbols/patterns to provide nonverbal cues and to express emotions in online text based environments. The focus is on the use of online textual symbols/patterns of vocalics (e.g. the use of capitals and use of punctuation "!" and "!!s!" or "?" and "???", length of response e.t.c), and those of chronemics (e.g. time to respond to an email or to a chat message) to communicate emotions in text. The study forms a basis for the development of an affect recognition model that is able to recognize emotions from written language and especially in environments where informal styles of writing are used. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.