Why We Feel: Breaking Boundaries in Emotional Reasoning with Multimodal Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lin, Yuxiang, Sun, Jingdong, Cheng, Zhi-Qi, Wang, Jue, Liang, Haomin, Cheng, Zebang, Dong, Yifei, He, Jun-Yan, Peng, Xiaojiang, Hua, Xian-Sheng
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Lin, Yuxiang
Sun, Jingdong
Cheng, Zhi-Qi
Wang, Jue
Liang, Haomin
Cheng, Zebang
Dong, Yifei
He, Jun-Yan
Peng, Xiaojiang
Hua, Xian-Sheng
author_facet Lin, Yuxiang
Sun, Jingdong
Cheng, Zhi-Qi
Wang, Jue
Liang, Haomin
Cheng, Zebang
Dong, Yifei
He, Jun-Yan
Peng, Xiaojiang
Hua, Xian-Sheng
contents Most existing emotion analysis emphasizes which emotion arises (e.g., happy, sad, angry) but neglects the deeper why. We propose Emotion Interpretation (EI), focusing on causal factors-whether explicit (e.g., observable objects, interpersonal interactions) or implicit (e.g., cultural context, off-screen events)-that drive emotional responses. Unlike traditional emotion recognition, EI tasks require reasoning about triggers instead of mere labeling. To facilitate EI research, we present EIBench, a large-scale benchmark encompassing 1,615 basic EI samples and 50 complex EI samples featuring multifaceted emotions. Each instance demands rationale-based explanations rather than straightforward categorization. We further propose a Coarse-to-Fine Self-Ask (CFSA) annotation pipeline, which guides Vision-Language Models (VLLMs) through iterative question-answer rounds to yield high-quality labels at scale. Extensive evaluations on open-source and proprietary large language models under four experimental settings reveal consistent performance gaps-especially for more intricate scenarios-underscoring EI's potential to enrich empathetic, context-aware AI applications. Our benchmark and methods are publicly available at: https://github.com/Lum1104/EIBench, offering a foundation for advanced multimodal causal analysis and next-generation affective computing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_07521
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Why We Feel: Breaking Boundaries in Emotional Reasoning with Multimodal Large Language Models
Lin, Yuxiang
Sun, Jingdong
Cheng, Zhi-Qi
Wang, Jue
Liang, Haomin
Cheng, Zebang
Dong, Yifei
He, Jun-Yan
Peng, Xiaojiang
Hua, Xian-Sheng
Artificial Intelligence
Multimedia
Most existing emotion analysis emphasizes which emotion arises (e.g., happy, sad, angry) but neglects the deeper why. We propose Emotion Interpretation (EI), focusing on causal factors-whether explicit (e.g., observable objects, interpersonal interactions) or implicit (e.g., cultural context, off-screen events)-that drive emotional responses. Unlike traditional emotion recognition, EI tasks require reasoning about triggers instead of mere labeling. To facilitate EI research, we present EIBench, a large-scale benchmark encompassing 1,615 basic EI samples and 50 complex EI samples featuring multifaceted emotions. Each instance demands rationale-based explanations rather than straightforward categorization. We further propose a Coarse-to-Fine Self-Ask (CFSA) annotation pipeline, which guides Vision-Language Models (VLLMs) through iterative question-answer rounds to yield high-quality labels at scale. Extensive evaluations on open-source and proprietary large language models under four experimental settings reveal consistent performance gaps-especially for more intricate scenarios-underscoring EI's potential to enrich empathetic, context-aware AI applications. Our benchmark and methods are publicly available at: https://github.com/Lum1104/EIBench, offering a foundation for advanced multimodal causal analysis and next-generation affective computing.
title Why We Feel: Breaking Boundaries in Emotional Reasoning with Multimodal Large Language Models
topic Artificial Intelligence
Multimedia
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.07521