Article,
Emotional and non-emotional persuasion
Applied Artificial Intelligence, (2006)
Abstract
A relevant issue in the domain of natural argumentation and persuasion is the interaction (synergic or conflicting)
between 'rational' or 'cognitive' modes of persuasion and 'irrational' or 'emotional' ones. This work provides a
model of general persuasion and emotional persuasion. We examine two basic modes for appealing to emotions,
arguing that emotional persuasion does not necessarily coincide with 'irrational' persuasion, and showing how the
appeal to emotions is grounded on the strict and manifold relationship between emotions and goals, which is, so to
say, 'exploited' by a persuader. We describe various persuasion strategies, propose a method to formalize and
represent them as oriented graphs, and show how emotional and non emotional strategies (and also emotional and
non emotional components in the same strategy) may interact with, and strengthen, each other. We finally address the
role of uncertainty in persuasion strategies and show how it can be represented in persuasion graphs.
