The Information in Emotion Communication
This work addresses the need for a rigorous framework to understand emotion communication, potentially enabling emotion security systems for social networks to combat online manipulation.
The authors tackled the problem of quantifying information transmission in animal emotion communication by developing a quantitative theory based on Shannon's information theory, which explains various aspects of emotion communication and offers new research directions.
How much information is transmitted when animals use emotions to communicate? It is clear that emotions are used as communication systems in humans and other species. The quantitative theory of emotion information presented here is based on Shannon's mathematical theory of information in communication systems. The theory explains myriad aspects of emotion communication and offers dozens of new directions for research. It is superior to the "contagion" theory of emotion spreading, which is currently dominant. One important application of the information theory of emotion communication is that it permits the development of emotion security systems for social networks to guard against the widespread emotion manipulation we see online today.