HCPRA: A Hierarchical Cognition-Perception-Reasoning Agent Framework for Emotion-Cause Pair Extraction in Conversations
Abstract
Emotion-Cause Pair Extraction in Conversations (ECPEC) aims to identify speakers' emotions and the corresponding causes within conversation contexts. This task has gained increasing attention in recent years. Existing methods typically operate from the perspective of text object, inputting the entire conversation text and relying on neural networks to highlight utterance features as a means of emotion perception, while employing pair concatenation as a single path cause reasoning strategy. However, in conversation scenarios, humans are the true origin of emotions, while language text merely serves as the medium of expression. Consequently, these methods lack the modeling of the cognition and reasoning processes behind the human's behavior from the perspective of the speaker subject. To address this issue, we propose a novel Hierarchical Cognition–Perception–Reasoning Agent (HCPRA) framework. The framework is oriented around the speaker, simulating their personality cognition and conversation scenario cognition. Moreover, it utilizes hybrid memory and implicit emotion enhancement to simulate the human emotion perception. Additionally, it employs a hierarchical emotion cause reasoning mechanism to extract interpretable relationships between the speaker's emotions and their causes through emotion awareness and multi-path cause reasoning. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on three datasets, with F1 improvement up to 15.61%.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yuanzhao Zhai | 79 | 100 Correcting Large Language Model Behavior via Influence Function (2025) Others 100 Uncertainty-penalized reinforcement learning from human feedback with diversified reward LoRA ensembles (2026) Others 100 Preference-Strength-Aware Self-Improving Alignment with Generative Preference Models (2025) Others |
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| 2 | Fangzhou Yao | 67 | 100 Collaborative Cognitive Diagnosis with Disentangled Representation Learning for Learner Modeling (2024) Others 100 BoxCD: Leveraging Contrastive Probabilistic Box Embedding for Effective and Efficient Learner Modeling (2025) Others 100 Towards the Identifiability and Explainability for Personalized Learner Modeling: An Inductive Paradigm (2024) Others |
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| 3 | Tianyu Wang 0028 | 30 | 100 Dual Discrepancy-Based Continuation Learning for Hybrid Supervised Multi-View 3D Object Detection (2025) Others 19 An Adaptable Budget Planner for Enhancing Budget-Constrained Auto-Bidding in Online Advertising (2025) Advertising and Auction Mechanisms 19 GAM: A Generative Auto-Marketing Framework in Online E-commerce Platforms (2026) Advertising and Auction Mechanisms |
Area chair
| Area chair | Match | |
|---|---|---|
| Ge Li 0001 | 78 |
Area-chair candidates (5)
| Ge Li 0001 assigned | 78 | 4 papers | |
| Dacheng Tao | 58 | 5 papers | |
| Hao Fei 0001 | 50 | 4 papers | |
| Xun Yang 0001 | 43 | 4 papers | |
| Fernando Diaz 0001 | 32 | 12 papers |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yuanzhao Zhai assigned | 79 | 3 | 100 Correcting Large Language Model Behavior via Influence Function (2025) Others 100 Uncertainty-penalized reinforcement learning from human feedback with diversified reward LoRA ensembles (2026) Others |
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| 3 | Fangzhou Yao assigned | 67 | 3 | 100 Collaborative Cognitive Diagnosis with Disentangled Representation Learning for Learner Modeling (2024) Others 100 BoxCD: Leveraging Contrastive Probabilistic Box Embedding for Effective and Efficient Learner Modeling (2025) Others |
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| 4 | Yong Li 0004 | 59 | 3 | 100 Consistency maintenance in real-time collaborative image editing systems (2003) Others 100 Group undo framework and algorithms in real-time collaborative image editing systems (2003) Others |
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| 6 | Zhe Xu 0009 | 52 | 3 | 100 Generalized Zero-Shot Learning via Disentangled Representation (2021) Others 100 Compress to One Point: Neural Collapse for Pre-Trained Model-Based Class-Incremental Learning (2025) Others |
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| 7 | Junjie Zhou 0001 | 50 | 3 | 100 DocDiff: Document Enhancement via Residual Diffusion Models (2023) Others 100 Fat: Field-Aware Transformer for 3D Point Cloud Semantic Segmentation (2023) Others |
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| 9 | Sajad Ebrahimi 0001 | 48 | 3 | 100 Building Trustworthy Peer Review Quality Assessment Systems (2025) Others 100 RottenReviews: Benchmarking Review Quality with Human and LLM-Based Judgments (2025) Others |
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| 10 | Amir Ingber | 47 | 3 | 100 Compressing Tabular Data via Pairwise Dependencies (2017) Others 59 Non-Asymptotic Design of Finite State Universal Predictors for Individual Sequences (2006) Efficient Retrieval and Indexing Systems › Others |
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| 11 | Gyuseok Lee | 47 | 3 | 100 Harmonic Dataset Distillation for Time Series Forecasting (2026) Others 23 Continual Collaborative Distillation for Recommender System (2024) Efficient and Lightweight Graph Collaborative Filtering |
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| 13 | Weizhou Shen | 43 | 3 | 100 Constituency Lattice Encoding for Aspect Term Extraction (2020) Others 100 Relational Graph Attention Network for Aspect-based Sentiment Analysis (2020) Others |
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| 14 | Saber Zerhoudi | 43 | 3 | 100 The Third Search Futures Workshop at ECIR'26 (2026) Others 100 The First International Workshop on Open Web Search (WOWS) (2024) Others |
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| 15 | Jimeng Sun 0001 | 42 | 3 | 100 GenRES: Rethinking Evaluation for Generative Relation Extraction in the Era of Large Language Models (2024) Others 100 Incremental tensor analysis: Theory and applications (2008) Others |
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| 16 | Jingwei Cheng | 41 | 3 | 61 Frame First, Then Extract: A Frame-Semantic Reasoning Pipeline for Zero-Shot Relation Triplet Extraction (2025) Knowledge Graphs and Entity-Centric Retrieval › Others 61 SRF: Enhancing Document-Level Relation Extraction with a Novel Secondary Reasoning Framework (2024) Knowledge Graphs and Entity-Centric Retrieval › Others |
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| 17 | Romain Deffayet | 41 | 3 | 100 Disentangled Object-Centric Image Representation for Robotic Manipulation (2025) Others 100 Distributional Reinforcement Learning with Dual Expectile-Quantile Regression (2025) Others |
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| 18 | Maryam Amirizaniani | 41 | 3 | 59 Enhancing AI Agents with Human Theory of Mind (ToM) for Context-Aware Actions (2025) Search Agents and LLM Reasoning › Others 59 Can LLMs Reason Like Humans? Assessing Theory of Mind Reasoning in LLMs for Open-Ended Questions (2024) Search Agents and LLM Reasoning › Others |
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| 19 | Jianghong Ma | 41 | 3 | 100 Semantic-Gap-Oriented Feature Selection and Classifier Construction in Multilabel Learning (2022) Others 100 Latent Topic-Aware Multi-label Classification (2020) Others |
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| 20 | Qisheng Hu | 40 | 3 | 100 From Moments to Milestones: Incremental Timeline Summarization Leveraging Large Language Models (2024) Others 30 Just What You Desire: Constrained Timeline Summarization with Self-Reflection for Enhanced Relevance (2025) Multi-hop and Complex Reasoning QA |
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| 21 | Wenyu Huang | 39 | 3 | 64 Retrieval Augmented Generation with Rich Answer Encoding (2023) Retrieval-Augmented Generation › Others 39 A Large-scale Offer Alignment Model for Partitioning Filtering and Matching Product Offers (2024) Entity Linking and Alignment |
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| 22 | Xingyu Tan 0001 | 38 | 3 | 100 Higher-Order Peak Decomposition (2023) Others 23 Paths-over-Graph: Knowledge Graph Empowered Large Language Model Reasoning (2025) KG-Augmented LLM Reasoning |
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| 23 | Wenlin Zhang 0001 | 37 | 3 | 100 Robust kernel principal component analysis with optimal mean (2022) Others 60 Graph Convolution RPCA With Adaptive Graph (2022) Graph Neural Networks for Web and Recommendation › Others |
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| 24 | Mingdai Yang | 36 | 3 | 100 Deep Reinforcement Learning of Volume-Guided Progressive View Inpainting for 3D Point Scene Completion From a Single Depth Image (2019) Others 100 A Hybrid Optical-Electrical Analog Deep Learning Accelerator Using Incoherent Optical Signals (2021) Others |
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| 25 | Fu Zhang 0001 | 36 | 3 | 61 Frame First, Then Extract: A Frame-Semantic Reasoning Pipeline for Zero-Shot Relation Triplet Extraction (2025) Knowledge Graphs and Entity-Centric Retrieval › Others 61 Re-Cent: A Relation-Centric Framework for Joint Zero-Shot Relation Triplet Extraction (2025) Knowledge Graphs and Entity-Centric Retrieval › Others |
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| 26 | Xinhang Li 0001 | 36 | 3 | 100 Towards Automatic ICD Coding via Knowledge Enhanced Multi-Task Learning (2023) Others 60 Corrections to "Contrastive Graph Pooling for Explainable Classification of Brain Networks" (2024) Graph Neural Networks for Web and Recommendation › Others |
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| 27 | Julian J. McAuley | 35 | 3 | 62 Translation-based Recommendation: A Scalable Method for Modeling Sequential Behavior (2018) Sequential and Session-Based Recommendation › Others 62 Translation-based Recommendation (2017) Sequential and Session-Based Recommendation › Others |
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| 28 | Yingyi Zhang 0001 | 34 | 3 | 100 Learning How and What to Memorize: Cognition-Inspired Two-Stage Optimization for Evolving Memory (2026) Others 100 When coordinated response meets complexity in catastrophes: Unlocking cross-sectoral emergency resource sharing (2026) Others |
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| 29 | Sruthi Gorantla | 34 | 3 | 100 Increasing Impact of Mobile Health Programs: SAHELI for Maternal and Child Care (2023) Others 59 Socially Fair Center-Based and Linear Subspace Clustering (2023) Fairness, Bias and Trust in IR and RecSys › Others |
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| 30 | Ori Yoran | 33 | 3 | 61 The KoLMogorov Test: Compression by Code Generation (2025) Text Representation and Language Models › Others 61 SCROLLS: Standardized CompaRison Over Long Language Sequences (2022) Question Answering and Reading Comprehension › Others |
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| 31 | Navve Wasserman | 33 | 3 | 61 Paint by Inpaint: Learning to Add Image Objects by Removing Them First (2025) Generative Models for Recommendation and Content › Others 18 REAL-MM-RAG: A Real-World Multi-Modal Retrieval Benchmark (2025) Universal Multimodal Embedding and MLLM Retrieval |
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| 33 | Hung Vinh Tran | 32 | 3 | 60 LODENet: A Holistic Approach to Offline Handwritten Chinese and Japanese Text Line Recognition (2020) Multimodal and Cross-Modal Retrieval › Others 27 A Thorough Performance Benchmarking on Lightweight Embedding-based Recommender Systems (2025) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation |
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| 34 | Tianzhe Zhao | 32 | 3 | 100 Improved prototypical network for active few-shot learning (2023) Others 44 Mind Reasoning Manners: Enhancing Type Perception for Generalized Zero-Shot Logical Reasoning Over Text (2024) Search Agents and LLM Reasoning › Others |
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| 35 | Shijie Wang 0002 | 31 | 3 | 64 A Survey on RAG Meeting LLMs: Towards Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models (2024) Retrieval-Augmented Generation › Others 64 Towards Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models: Data Management and System Design (2025) Retrieval-Augmented Generation › Others |