Charlotte Gerritsen

VU University · Computer Science

In an era of rapid technological advancements, computer systems play a crucial role in early Violence Detection (VD) and localization, which is critical for timely human intervention. However, existing VD methods often fall short, lacking applicability to surveillance data, and failing to address the localization and social dimension of violent eve...

Location-based sentiment analysis is a promising field of study with various applications, but faces issues due to location uncertainty and lack of domain specificity. Our proposed solution automatically builds domain-adaptive lexicons for region-specific sentiment analysis. An initial lexicon for location estimation is created using topic modeling...

A considerable number of agent-based models have been introduced to study the spread of emotions in crowds. Since these studies often aim to simulate collective behaviour driven by emotional escalation, like during stampedes and riots, amplification of emotion is a key aspect in these models. However, the biological processes underlaying emotion am...

Young adulthood is a period of high risk for the development of mental health concerns. Increasing well-being among young adults is important to prevent mental health concerns and their consequences. Self-compassion has been identified as a modifiable trait with the potential to protect against mental health concerns. An online self-guided mental h...

In recent years, many agent-based models of human groups have implemented a mechanism of emotion contagion, yet empirical validation is lagging behind. The aim of the present paper is to validate an agent-based model of emotion contagion at the level of group emotion, by comparing simulations against the emotional development of real people in smal...

Emotions are known to spread among people, a process known as emotion contagion. Both positive and negative emotions are believed to be contagious, but the mass spread of negative emotions has attracted the most attention due to its danger to society. The use of agent-based techniques to simulate emotion contagion in crowds has grown over the last...

When people who strongly identify with different competitive groups meet, this can result in negative affect and aggression. A significant body of work has applied agent-based modelling to study the spread of emotions in the crowds, called emotion contagion. Although some of these models consider the effect of pre-existing social relationships, thi...

Both social group detection and group emotion recognition in images are growing fields of interest, but never before have they been combined. In this work we aim to detect emotional subgroups in images, which can be of great importance for crowd surveillance or event analysis. To this end, human annotators are instructed to label a set of 171 image...

Young adults that struggle with mental health issues experience barriers to seek help. With our online self-compassion training we try to overcome some of these barriers. To improve our training, we can personalise exercises based on topic modelling. Data from a pilot study is used to analyse and evaluate the algorithm. Overall, the algorithm has a...

This article is part of a project that explores the potential of chatbots for providing online emotional support to humans tailored to stressors. Based on a number of empirical studies, we have developed a socially interactive agent able to have simple dialogues with stressed humans seeking for emotional support. In the current article, we address...

Parents play an important role in the mental development of a child. In our previous work, we addressed how a narcissistic parent influences a child (online/offline) when (s)he is happy and admires the child. Now, we address the influence of a parent who is not so much pleased, and may curse the child for being the reason for his or her unhappiness...

Existing agent-based models of emotion contagion that account for the emotional diversity in groups have mostly focussed on the spread of categorical emotions (happy, sad, angry). In practice this raises problems with regard to how the spread of different emotions should interact. Can one be both very happy and very angry at the same time, or shift...

This review aims to summarize and describe research on the topic of automatic group emotion recognition. In recent years, the topic of emotion analysis of groups or crowds has gained interest, with studies performing emotion detection in different contexts, using different datasets and modalities (such as images, video, audio, social media messages...

Serious games and gamification is a popular and growing field, commercially and for academic research. This paper aims to give an overview of a specific domain within the field of serious gaming and gamification; the field of serious games and gamification to empower vulnerable target groups. This overview contributes to a better understanding of t...

This paper presents a cognitive model on electroconvulsive treatment to reduce the stress level in body. The stress reduction is triggered by a cognitive electroconvulsive treatment that uses persistent manipulation of this treatment. The goal of this treatment is to decrease the strength between certain parts of the brain which are in charge of th...

"Agent-based modelling for criminological theory testing and development" addresses the question whether and how we can use simulation methods in order to test criminological theories, and if they fail to be corroborated, how we can use simulation to mend and further develop theories. It is by no means immediately obvious how results being observed...

Introduction to the edited volume

Social media like Twitter or Instagram play the role of a fertile platform for self-exhibition and allow their users to earn a good repute. People higher in grandiosity share their contents in a charismatic way and as a result, they are successful in gaining attention from others, which may also influence their responses and behaviors. Such attenti...

Parents play an important role in the mental development of a child. In our previous work, we addressed how a narcissistic parent influences a child (online/offline) when (s)he is happy and admires the child. Now, we address the influence of a parent who is not so much pleased and, may curse the child for being the reason for his or her unhappiness...

Peer victimization is usually addressed with hazardous short and long term effects. Social surroundings and cyber technology act as a fertile ground for perpetrators to target victims. Fragile and lonely people are often targeted by aggressors or bullies who may make them feel like a 'loser'. This results in their withdrawal from society and can re...

In recent years, simulation techniques have been applied to investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of crime. Researchers have instantiated mobile offenders in agent-based simulations for theory testing, experimenting with crime prevention strategies, and exploring crime prediction techniques, despite facing challenges due to the complex dynamics o...

Parental influence plays an important role in the mental development of a child. In the early years of childhood, a parent acts as a role model, so most of the children try to mimic their parents. In our work, we address a complex network model of a child who is influenced by a narcissistic parent from his/her childhood to his/her adolescence. This...

Stress is often seen as a negative factor which affects every individ-ual's life quality and decision making. To help avoid or deal with extreme emotions caused by an external stressor, a number of practices have been introduced. In the scope of this paper, we take three kinds of therapy into account: mindful-ness, humor, and music therapy. This pa...

Doorstep scams, scams in which con artists tell convincing but fraudulent stories in order to enter the house of a victim and/or steal personal belongings or information, have a high impact on victims. These victims are often elderly people. Existing campaigns mostly focus on the behavioural aspects that help to prevent a doorstep scam from happeni...

Bullying is an intentional abusive behaviour, caused by power imbalance, which can leave long lasting effects over the mental and physical health of a victim. In order to combat such situations, victims need someone that can help them, a mediator who is able to reduce the oppression. This paper presents temporal-causal network models related to vic...

Social media like Twitter or Instagram play a role of fertile ground for self-exhibition, which is used by various narcissists to share their frequent updates reflecting their narcissism. Their belief of saving and assisting others, make them vulnerable to the feedback of others, so their rage is as dangerous as their messiah complex. In this paper...

In this paper, an adaptive temporal causal network model based on electroconvulsive therapy to reduce the stress level of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is presented. The stress reduction is triggered by a cognitive electroconvulsive therapy that uses continuous usage of this therapy. The goal of this therapy is to decrease the strength betw...

ocial media is one of the widely used channels for interpersonal communication, to express feelings and thoughts through certain feedback. Blogs or ecommerce websites share plenty of such information, which serves as a valuable asset, and is also used to make predictions. However, negative feedback can ruin the essence of such platforms, causing fr...

Many researchers are studying the application of computer-generated emotional support to increase well-being in humans. In this chapter, we investigate some challenges related to the development of effective stress support bots. We developed a chatbot for Facebook Messenger that, using IBM Watson’s text mining and machine learning capabilities, can...

To train public transport employees to deal with aggressivepassengers, simulation-based training can be a cost-effective instrument.Within this research a virtual reality training application for bus drivershas been developed. The application consists of 10 different scenariosthat can be used to practice how to act during confrontations with ag-gre...

Doorstep scams are scams, often happening at the front door, in which a con artist has a convincing, but fraudulent, story with the purpose of coming into your house and/or stealing money. Various campaigns to educate people exist, but they do not focus on the verbal skills people can use to prevent themselves from becoming a victim. This paper des...

Serious games are increasingly being used for training of social skills. The main idea is to create a virtual environment in which a trainee can interact with graphically embodied virtual characters. By designing scenarios in such way that the character’s behaviour provides direct feedback on the correctness of the trainee’s choices, an interactive...

Serious games are increasingly being used for training of communicative skills. The main idea is to create a virtual environment in which a trainee can interact with graphically embodied virtual characters. By designing scenarios in such way that the character’s behaviour provides direct feedback on the correctness of the trainee’s choices, an inte...

Social media have grown over the past decade to become an important factor in the way people share information. This paper explores the feasibility of using Twitter data for predictive policing models within the city of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. A novel, powerful approach to Bayesian inference is used to assess the correlations between the spatio...

This chapter discusses the use of agent based and laboratory simulation methods for investigating preventive measures against crime. We distinguish anticipatory prevention that attempts to preclude that offenders and targets meet while no guardians are present, and mitigating prevention that when such meetings take place attempt to deflect the seri...

Model-based reasoning approaches can be used to formalize and analyze (informal) theories from the field of criminology, to help gain more insight in criminological phenomena that were not clear based on just the informal theory. The analysis of the displacement of crime is an important research interest in criminological research. In this chapter,...

1 Artificial Intelligence techniques are increasingly being used to develop smart training applications for professionals in various domains. This paper presents an intelligent training system that enables professionals in the public domain to practice their aggression de-escalation skills. The system is one of the main products of the STRESS proje...

Serious games are increasingly being used for training of communicative skills. The main idea is to create a virtual environment in which a trainee can interact with graphically embodied virtual characters. By designing scenarios in such way that the character's behaviour provides direct feedback on the correctness of the trainee's choices, an inte...

Public transport employees are confronted with aggressive behavior on a regular basis. As such encounters can have serious consequences, employees need to be well prepared, so that they know how to deal with incidents of aggression. The current paper describes an ongoing endeavor that is aimed at the development and evaluation of a simulation-based...

People can learn how to deal with negative situations by using serious games containing negative virtual characters, such as angry passengers in a public transport training scenario or hostile suspects in a police training scenario. Unfortunately little research has examined the effects of negative agents on the user. In this paper, an experiment i...

The emergence of aggressive behaviour in crowds is not uncommon and is typically unpredictable and difficult to control. Since the availability of guardians for the prevention of aggression is typically limited, it would be useful if the emergence of unwanted behaviour could somehow be predicted. This paper presents a novel approach to predict the...

The ability to de-escalate confrontations with aggressive individuals is a useful skill, in particular within professions in public domains. Nevertheless, offering appropriate training that enables students to develop such skills is a nontrivial matter. As a complementary approach to real-world training, the STRESS project proposes a simulation-bas...

Computational modelling techniques, originating from fields like Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, may be beneficial for criminological research. Because of their formal nature, computational models can be processed by machines that operate on them, for example for the purpose of simulation. As a consequence, these techniques may help g...

Most research into intelligent virtual agents focuses on agents with a positive stance towards the user. Nevertheless, the development of virtual agents that show aggressive behavior may also be interesting for a range of application domains, varying from aggression de-escalation training to anti-bullying education. However, ensuring that such aggr...

For professionals in military and law enforcement domains, learning to regulate one’s emotions under threatening circumstances is crucial. The STRESS project envisions a virtual reality-based system to enable such professionals to train their emotion regulation skills. To explore the possibilities for such a system, this article describes an experi...

For professionals in various domains, training based on Virtual Reality can be an interesting method to improve their emotion regulation skills. However, for such a training system to be effective, it is essential to trigger the desired emotional state in the trainee. Hence, an important question is to what extent virtual stimuli have the ability t...

Serious games seem to be more effective if the participant feels more involved in the game. The participant should experience a high sense of presence which can be obtained by matching the level of excitement to the level of arousal a participant experiences. The level of arousal should be measured at runtime to make the game adaptive to the partic...

Learning to cope with negative emotions is an important challenge, which has received considerable attention in domains like the military and law enforcement. Driven by the aim to develop better training in coping skills, this paper presents an adaptive computational model of emotion regulation strategies, which is inspired by recent neurological l...

Professionals with high pressure jobs such as police officers and military personnel often have to deal with difficult situations. In order to train such professionals to deal with their emotions and prevent possible anxiety disorders an ambient virtual training environment is being developed. This environment enables the trainee to deal with diffe...

Learning to regulate one’s emotions under threatening circumstances is important, among others, for professionals like police officers and military personnel. To explore the opportunities of Virtual Reality-based training for such professionals, this paper describes an experiment performed to investigate the impact of virtual training on participan...

Criminal behaviour often involves a combination of physical, mental, social and environmental (multi-)agent aspects, such as neurological deviations, hormones, arousal, (non)empathy, targets and social control. This paper contributes a dynamical agent-based approach for analysis and simulation of criminal behaviour, covering the above aspects, illu...

Training to cope with negative emotions or stress is important for professionals with a high pressure job, such as police officers and military personnel. The work reported in this paper is part of a project that aims to develop a Virtual Reality based training environment for such professionals. As a first step in that direction, an experiment was...

Training to cope with negative emotions or stress is important for professionals with a high pressure job, such as police officers and military personnel. The work reported in this paper is part of a project that aims to develop a Virtual Reality based training environment for such professionals. As a first step in that direction, an experiment was...

Within agent-based Ambient Intelligence applications agents react to humans based on information obtained by sensoring and their knowledge about human functioning. Appropriate types of reactions depend on the extent to which an agent understands the human and is able to interpret the available information (which is often incomplete, and hence multi...

The bystander effect is a well-known phenomenon in criminology, stating that bystanders tend to inhibit people’s tendency to intervene in situations where norms are violated. This paper presents an agent-based simulation model of this phenomenon. The simulation model presented demonstrates the decision process of an agent for norm violation situati...

This article discusses how a cognitive modelling approach for criminal behaviour can be related to a biological modelling approach. The discussion is illustrated by a case study for the behaviour of three types of violent criminals as known from literature within the area of Criminology. A cognitive model is discussed that can show each of the beha...

During events that involve large crowds (e.g., demonstrations or sports events), large-scale aggressive outbursts are not uncommon. Since these outbursts are usually triggered by relatively small stimuli, and the amount of people involved may grow very quickly, their emergence is often highly unpredictable and difficult to control. The number of di...

To enhance believability of virtual agents, this paper presents an agent-based modelling approach for decision making, which integrates rational reasoning based on means-end analysis with personal psychological and biological aspects. The agent model developed is a combination of a BDI-model and a utility-based decision model in the context of spec...

Central research questions addressed within Criminology are how the geographical displacement of crime can be understood, explained, and predicted. The process of crime displacement is usually explained by referring to the interaction of three types of agents: criminals, passers-by, and guardians. Most existing simulation models of this process tak...

A large number of delinquent activities are performed by adolescents and only occur during this period in their lives. One of the main factors that influence this behaviour is social interaction, mainly with peers. This paper con- tributes a computational model that predicts delinquent behaviour during ado- lescence based on interaction with friend...

Within the field of Criminology, the spatio-temporal dynamics of crime are an important subject of study. In this area, typical questions are how the behaviour of offenders, targets, and guardians can be explained and predicted, as well as the emergence and displacement of criminal hot spots. In this article we present a combination of software too...

An important research topic within Environmental Criminology is the analysis of the spatio-temporal dynamics of crime. Some of the main challenges in this area are the prediction and prevention of criminal hot spots. This paper presents an agent-based framework that is able to address such challenges. The framework exploits simulation techniques to...

Criminal behaviour exists in many variations, each with its own cause. A large group of offenders only shows criminal behaviour during adolescence. This kind of behaviour is largely influenced by the interaction with others, through social learning. This paper contributes a dynamical agent-based approach to simulate social learning of adolescence-l...