Humor modeling in the interface

Humor is a multi-disciplinary field of research. People have been working on humor in many fields of research, such as psychology, philosophy and linguistics, sociology and literature. Especially in the context of computer science (or Artificial Intelligence) humor research aims at modeling humor in a computationally tractable way. Having computational models of humor allows interface designers to have the computer generate and interpret humor when interacting with users. Being able to recognize a user's frustration [5] can be useful; however, preventing it whenever possible by an adequate use of humor can be useful as well. There are many situations in human-human interaction where humor plays an important role. It does not only play an entertaining role. It helps in regulating conversations (social and business conversations), building trust between partners and facilitating self-disclosure and it is an important factor in social attraction. Nass has shown in different studies [7, 10] that humans respond in the same way to computers as they do to persons with respect to psychosocial phenomena such as personality, politeness, flattery, and in-group favoritism. Making use of this paradigm we may investigate a similar role to be played in human-computer interaction for various types of humor use and we can see whether the regulating and social- psychological aspects of humor can play positive roles in human-computer interaction.