Affective computing: Connecting computing with human emotions for empathetic AI.

Affective computing is a rapidly evolving field that integrates computer science, engineering, psychology, neuroscience, and other disciplines. It enables machines to perceive, recognize, understand, and respond to human emotions, with applications in education, healthcare, business services, and more. The field has seen significant growth in research publications, particularly in China, the United States, India, the UK, and Germany. Key research themes include natural language processing, facial expression recognition, human-computer interaction, affective disorder analysis, and multimodal emotion analysis. Innovations in affective computing include emotion generation techniques, sentiment classification models, and the study of group-level emotions. The field is also addressing cultural diversity and ethical concerns. Future applications include affective brain-computer interfaces, empathic human-computer dialogue, emotion-assisted decision-making, and affective virtual reality. [Extracted from the article]