Psychoanalytic Concepts for the Control of Emotion in Pet-like Robots

Contents

This paper discusses the importance of psychoanalytic theory for the design of believable pet-like robots. Out of this theory, I model a portion of the Freudian Ego as an information transmission relay allowing the robot to learn the emotional consequences of present situations. This allows emotion regulation to take place if the caretakers behave appropriately during the robot’s early childhood.