Emotions in the Loop: A Survey of Affective Computing for Emotional Support

In a world where technology is increasingly embedded in our everyday experiences, systems that sense and respond to human emotions are elevating digital interaction. At the intersection of artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction, affective computing is emerging with innovative solutions where machines are humanized by enabling them to process and respond to user emotions. This survey paper explores recent research contributions in affective computing applications in the area of emotion recognition, sentiment analysis and personality assignment developed using approaches like large language models (LLMs), multimodal techniques, and personalized AI systems. We analyze the key contributions and innovative methodologies applied by the selected research papers by categorizing them into four domains: AI chatbot applications, multimodal input systems, mental health and therapy applications, and affective computing for safety applications. We then highlight the technological strengths as well as the research gaps and challenges related to these studies. Furthermore, the paper examines the datasets used in each study, highlighting how modality, scale, and diversity impact the development and performance of affective models. Finally, the survey outlines ethical considerations and proposes future directions to develop applications that are more safe, empathetic and practical.

Multimodal Transformers are Hierarchical Modal-wise Heterogeneous Graphs

Multimodal Sentiment Analysis (MSA) is a rapidly developing field that integrates multimodal information to recognize sentiments, and existing models have made significant progress in this area. The central challenge in MSA is multimodal fusion, which is predominantly addressed by Multimodal Transformers (MulTs). Although act as the paradigm, MulTs suffer from efficiency concerns. In this work, from the perspective of efficiency optimization, we propose and prove that MulTs are hierarchical modal-wise heterogeneous graphs (HMHGs), and we introduce the graph-structured representation pattern of MulTs. Based on this pattern, we propose an Interlaced Mask (IM) mechanism to design the Graph-Structured and Interlaced-Masked Multimodal Transformer (GsiT). It is formally equivalent to MulTs which achieves an efficient weight-sharing mechanism without information disorder through IM, enabling All-Modal-In-One fusion with only 1/3 of the parameters of pure MulTs. A Triton kernel called Decomposition is implemented to ensure avoiding additional computational overhead. Moreover, it achieves significantly higher performance than traditional MulTs. To further validate the effectiveness of GsiT itself and the HMHG concept, we integrate them into multiple state-of-the-art models and demonstrate notable performance improvements and parameter reduction on widely used MSA datasets.

Emotional Analysis of Fashion Trends Using Social Media and AI: Sentiment Analysis on Twitter for Fashion Trend Forecasting

This study explores the intersection of fashion trends and social media sentiment through computational analysis of Twitter data using the T4SA (Twitter for Sentiment Analysis) dataset. By applying natural language processing and machine learning techniques, we examine how sentiment patterns in fashion-related social media conversations can serve as predictors for emerging fashion trends. Our analysis involves the identification and categorization of fashion-related content, sentiment classification with improved normalization techniques, time series decomposition, statistically validated causal relationship modeling, cross-platform sentiment comparison, and brand-specific sentiment analysis. Results indicate correlations between sentiment patterns and fashion theme popularity, with accessories and streetwear themes showing statistically significant rising trends. The Granger causality analysis establishes sustainability and streetwear as primary trend drivers, showing bidirectional relationships with several other themes. The findings demonstrate that social media sentiment analysis can serve as an effective early indicator of fashion trend trajectories when proper statistical validation is applied. Our improved predictive model achieved 78.35% balanced accuracy in sentiment classification, establishing a reliable foundation for trend prediction across positive, neutral, and negative sentiment categories.

Deep Learning Characterizes Depression and Suicidal Ideation from Eye Movements

Identifying physiological and behavioral markers for mental health conditions is a longstanding challenge in psychiatry. Depression and suicidal ideation, in particular, lack objective biomarkers, with screening and diagnosis primarily relying on self-reports and clinical interviews. Here, we investigate eye tracking as a potential marker modality for screening purposes. Eye movements are directly modulated by neuronal networks and have been associated with attentional and mood-related patterns; however, their predictive value for depression and suicidality remains unclear. We recorded eye-tracking sequences from 126 young adults as they read and responded to affective sentences, and subsequently developed a deep learning framework to predict their clinical status. The proposed model included separate branches for trials of positive and negative sentiment, and used 2D time-series representations to account for both intra-trial and inter-trial variations. We were able to identify depression and suicidal ideation with an area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) of 0.793 (95% CI: 0.765-0.819) against healthy controls, and suicidality specifically with 0.826 AUC (95% CI: 0.797-0.852). The model also exhibited moderate, yet significant, accuracy in differentiating depressed from suicidal participants, with 0.609 AUC (95% CI 0.571-0.646). Discriminative patterns emerge more strongly when assessing the data relative to response generation than relative to the onset time of the final word of the sentences. The most pronounced effects were observed for negative-sentiment sentences, that are congruent to depressed and suicidal participants. Our findings highlight eye tracking as an objective tool for mental health assessment and underscore the modulatory impact of emotional stimuli on cognitive processes affecting oculomotor control.

Linguistic Complexity and Socio-cultural Patterns in Hip-Hop Lyrics

This paper presents a comprehensive computational framework for analyzing linguistic complexity and socio-cultural trends in hip-hop lyrics. Using a dataset of 3,814 songs from 146 influential artists spanning four decades (1980-2020), we employ natural language processing techniques to quantify multiple dimensions of lyrical complexity. Our analysis reveals a 23.7% increase in vocabulary diversity over the study period, with East Coast artists demonstrating 17.3% higher lexical variation than other regions. Rhyme density increased by 34.2% across all regions, with Midwest artists exhibiting the highest technical complexity (3.04 rhymes per line). Topic modeling identified significant shifts in thematic content, with social justice themes decreasing from 28.5% to 13.8% of content while introspective themes increased from 7.6% to 26.3%. Sentiment analysis demon- strated that lyrics became significantly more negative during sociopolitical crises, with polarity decreasing by 0.31 following major social unrest. Multi-dimensional analysis revealed four dis- tinct stylistic approaches that correlate strongly with geographic origin (r=0.68, p!0.001) and time period (r=0.59, p<0.001). These findings establish quantitative evidence for the evolution of hip- hop as both an art form and a reflection of societal dynamics, providing insights into the interplay between linguistic innovation and cultural context in popular music.

Narrative-Centered Emotional Reflection: Scaffolding Autonomous Emotional Literacy with AI

Reflexion is an AI-powered platform designed to enable structured emotional self-reflection at scale. By integrating real-time emotion detection, layered reflective prompting, and metaphorical storytelling generation, Reflexion empowers users to engage in autonomous emotional exploration beyond basic sentiment categorization. Grounded in theories of expressive writing, cognitive restructuring, self-determination, and critical consciousness development, the system scaffolds a progressive journey from surface-level emotional recognition toward value-aligned action planning. Initial pilot studies with diverse participants demonstrate positive outcomes in emotional articulation, cognitive reframing, and perceived psychological resilience. Reflexion represents a promising direction for scalable, theory-informed affective computing interventions aimed at fostering emotional literacy and psychological growth across educational, therapeutic, and public health contexts.

Detecting Effects of AI-Mediated Communication on Language Complexity and Sentiment

Given the subtle human-like effects of large language models on linguistic patterns, this study examines shifts in language over time to detect the impact of AI-mediated communication (AI- MC) on social media. We compare a replicated dataset of 970,919 tweets from 2020 (pre-ChatGPT) with 20,000 tweets from the same period in 2024, all of which mention Donald Trump during election periods. Using a combination of Flesch-Kincaid readability and polarity scores, we analyze changes in text complexity and sentiment. Our findings reveal a significant increase in mean sentiment polarity (0.12 vs. 0.04) and a shift from predominantly neutral content (54.8% in 2020 to 39.8% in 2024) to more positive expressions (28.6% to 45.9%). These findings suggest not only an increasing presence of AI in social media communication but also its impact on language and emotional expression patterns.

Systematic Bias in Large Language Models: Discrepant Response Patterns in Binary vs. Continuous Judgment Tasks

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used in tasks such as psychological text analysis and decision-making in automated workflows. However, their reliability remains a concern due to potential biases inherited from their training process. In this study, we examine how different response format: binary versus continuous, may systematically influence LLMs' judgments. In a value statement judgments task and a text sentiment analysis task, we prompted LLMs to simulate human responses and tested both formats across several models, including both open-source and commercial models. Our findings revealed a consistent negative bias: LLMs were more likely to deliver "negative" judgments in binary formats compared to continuous ones. Control experiments further revealed that this pattern holds across both tasks. Our results highlight the importance of considering response format when applying LLMs to decision tasks, as small changes in task design can introduce systematic biases.

Arabic Metaphor Sentiment Classification Using Semantic Information

In this paper, I discuss the testing of the Arabic Metaphor Corpus (AMC) [1] using newly designed automatic tools for sentiment classification for AMC based on semantic tags. The tool incorporates semantic emotional tags for sentiment classification. I evaluate the tool using standard methods, which are F-score, recall, and precision. The method is to show the impact of Arabic online metaphors on sentiment through the newly designed tools. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach to conduct sentiment classification for Arabic metaphors using semantic tags to find the impact of the metaphor.

Test It Before You Trust It: Applying Software Testing for Trustworthy In-context Learning

In-context learning (ICL) has emerged as a powerful capability of large language models (LLMs), enabling them to perform new tasks based on a few provided examples without explicit fine-tuning. Despite their impressive adaptability, these models remain vulnerable to subtle adversarial perturbations and exhibit unpredictable behavior when faced with linguistic variations. Inspired by software testing principles, we introduce a software testing-inspired framework, called MMT4NL, for evaluating the trustworthiness of in-context learning by utilizing adversarial perturbations and software testing techniques. It includes diverse evaluation aspects of linguistic capabilities for testing the ICL capabilities of LLMs. MMT4NL is built around the idea of crafting metamorphic adversarial examples from a test set in order to quantify and pinpoint bugs in the designed prompts of ICL. Our philosophy is to treat any LLM as software and validate its functionalities just like testing the software. Finally, we demonstrate applications of MMT4NL on the sentiment analysis and question-answering tasks. Our experiments could reveal various linguistic bugs in state-of-the-art LLMs.