Hatthini

Are words just a tool to describe our inner states, or are they essential to shaping our very perception of the world?

You guessed it correctly! Language shapes our perception, crystallizing abstract concepts and drawing similarities from categories that are so different. Without a label, a butterfly in the stomach, a fluttering heartbeat, and an electrifying feeling would be all so different. But with a label, we can call these feelings toward our partners “love.” Impairing access to the semantic meanings of emotion words has been shown to impair the perception of emotional faces. In other words, emotion words constitute our emotional experience.

In this project, we explore the use of language, specifically granular emotional words, to improve emotion regulation ability. We hypothesize that providing granular emotion words at the right place and right time can help individuals crystallize new emotional concepts and, in turn, improve their emotion regulation ability.

Role:

1. Development: Developed the Hatthini chatbot system (from backend to front-end).
2. Experiment: Designed the experiment, ran the user study (recruited participants, monitored their interactions, conducted interviews).
3. Analysis: Analyzed the results and wrote the paper.

Publication:

Mia Huong Nguyen, Dixon Daniel Prem, Suranga Nanayakkara. 2024. More than just words: Exploring the Effect of Granular Affect Labeling on Emotion Regulation Ability. Under review.

Fun Fact
Did you know that Hatthini means elephant in the Pali language? The name is inspired by the symbolic meaning of elephants in Buddhist scripture. There, the elephant is the symbol of physical and emotional resilience - the main focus of this project.