gorman26@interspeech_2026@ISCA

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#1 Shifting Relational Paradigms for Affective Computing: Affective Resonance, Vitality Affects, and Vocal Interaction Fields [PDF] [Copy] [Kimi] [REL]

Authors: Cy Gorman, Yihang Yao

Affective computing has largely followed an individual-state paradigm, extracting discrete emotion labels or arousal/valence from isolated speakers. We argue this framing is incomplete for interaction. Drawing on affective resonance and vitality-contour accounts, we propose a relational framework in which the primary unit of affective analysis is the interactional field constituted within vocal dynamics. As a proof of concept, we present a preliminary empirical study using continuous self-supervised speech representations to detect directional expressive coupling in multi-party conversation. Coupling is regime-specific, concentrated at sub-second timescales, and collapses under exclusive-speech negative controls, consistent with a relational account of affective dynamics. We introduce design frameworks for Artificial Affective Resonance Intelligence grounded in Affective Resonance Dynamic Ontologies, supported by null-calibrated directional coupling analyses across interaction regimes.

Subject: INTERSPEECH.2026 - Language and Multimodal