ESL Protocol — Emotional Salience Layer
Overview
The Emotional Salience Layer (ESL) is the SIM‑ONE Framework’s governance protocol for interpreting, preserving, and applying emotional context in a deterministic, repeatable way.
It does not simulate emotion in the human sense — rather, it treats emotional content as a governed dimension of communication that must be understood, evaluated, and integrated into cognitive decision‑making.
ESL ensures that emotional signals are processed with the same rigor as logical or factual information, preventing inconsistent or manipulative outputs.
Key Functions
- Emotional Context Governance — Identifies and interprets emotional signals in content under deterministic rules.
- Salience Assessment — Quantifies the relative importance of emotional cues in context.
- Memory Integration — Preserves significant emotional context for relevant future governance decisions.
- Communication Consistency — Maintains stable emotional tone across workflows.
- Contextual Alignment — Ensures emotional cues align with truth foundation and governance principles.
Governance Role in SIM‑ONE
ESL supports the Five Laws of Cognitive Governance by:
- Ensuring emotional content is evaluated with the same rigor as factual data.
- Maintaining alignment between emotional context and truth‑based reasoning.
- Preventing unintended bias through uncontrolled emotional amplification.
- Preserving meaningful emotional cues for context‑aware decision‑making.
Emotional Governance Modes
ESL operates under several high‑level governance strategies:
- Tone Regulation — Maintains consistent and governance‑aligned tone in system outputs.
- Contextual Persistence — Retains only significant and relevant emotional cues for reuse.
- Signal Filtering — Disregards emotional input that does not meet governance salience thresholds.
- Deterministic Classification — Assigns emotional tone and categories in a predictable, repeatable way.
Emotional Context Oversight
ESL governs:
- Tone Consistency — Prevents tone drift between related communications.
- Salience Tracking — Quantifies importance of emotional signals for governance consideration.
- Cross‑Protocol Integration — Shares validated emotional context with other governance protocols such as CCP and REP.
- Emotional Memory — Maintains a controlled, auditable record of significant emotional associations.
Integration within SIM‑ONE
ESL operates as a specialized interpretive layer:
- Works with CCP to ensure emotional cues are considered in workflow coordination.
- Provides context for protocols that rely on audience perception, content tone, or sentiment alignment.
- Contributes to truth‑aligned communication by ensuring emotional content reinforces rather than distorts governed outputs.
Benefits in Governed Cognition
- Predictable Communication — Consistent emotional interpretation across all contexts.
- Bias Mitigation — Reduces risk of ungoverned emotional influence on reasoning.
- Enhanced Context Awareness — Supports more accurate and human‑relevant governance decisions.
- Stability in Interaction — Maintains governance‑approved tone even in dynamic conversations.
Notes on Implementation
Details on emotional classification models, salience scoring algorithms, and contextual weighting formulas are available in the repository’s implementation under the dual-license model.
This documentation outlines ESL’s governance purpose, operational role, and integration philosophy without exposing implementation specifics.