Although emotions are an essential part of human and very probably also other higher animal cognitive processes, they are rarely used in computer models of organisms. In this article we will investigate the role of artificial emotions in the models of organisms.
We will introduce some psychological theories explaining the origin and importance of emotions. Then we will discuss the benefits of artificial emotions from the point of view of computer science.
We will illustrate the proposed ideas in two projects opponents from a 3D computer game, where emotions are used to increase their believability, and a virtual mouse, where we research the possible importance of emotions for reinforcement learning.