crying
Enable an AI agent to recognise and describe a crying episode, assess what is known about its course and meaning, and identify appropriate responses without assuming its cause or the person's wishes.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
Researched by: Codex + Grok
Purpose and description
Enable an AI agent to recognise and describe a crying episode, assess what is known about its course and meaning, and identify appropriate responses without assuming its cause or the person's wishes.
Crying is a coordinated human secretomotor and expressive behaviour in which lacrimal tearing is coupled to a stereotyped facial pattern and, especially in infancy, to a characteristic vocalization and disrupted breathing, elicited by emotional, painful, or ocular-irritant stimuli and used by infants as the primary distance signal that solicits care.
It can be Record a crying episode while separating observations, personal reports, and interpretations.; Track changes in tears, vocal expression, pauses, and reported experience across an observation interval.; Ask what the person wants when communication is possible, without demanding an explanation for crying.; Offer or arrange requested company, privacy, a pause in an activity, or practical assistance.; Reassess a response using the person's feedback and changes in the episode.; Pass separately established urgent concerns to an appropriate assistance process without treating crying alone as a diagnosis..
Distinguishing features
Visible tears alone do not establish a crying episode: distinguish evidence of crying from eye watering whose relation to crying is absent or uncertain.
Reported sadness or distress without reported or observed crying expressions does not by itself establish crying.
Vocal or bodily expressions may support an identification of crying when tears are not visible; record the evidence rather than requiring visible tears.
When sounds could be laughing, coughing, shouting, or crying, preserve ambiguity and seek accompanying expression or the person's account.
Distinguish a current crying episode from a depiction or recollection of one; mark deliberate enactment separately rather than presuming deception.
Scope
+ Actual, reported, or suspected crying episodes, with the evidence supporting each designation
+ Tears, crying vocalisations, sobbing, and associated facial or bodily expressions
+ Onset, pauses, recurrence, cessation, and the person's reported recovery
+ The person's account of the crying and its immediate circumstances
+ Whether crying is spontaneous, deliberately enacted, mixed, or of unknown intentionality
+ Requests, consent, and observed responses to comfort, privacy, or other assistance
- Eye physiology, tear production mechanisms, and ocular conditions
- Diagnosis or treatment of medical and mental health conditions
- Emotions such as sadness, joy, frustration, or grief considered independently of crying
- Bereavement processes and enduring psychological histories
- Relationships, conflicts, and social norms beyond their relevance to the episode
- Recordings, performances, and media assets as independently managed things
Characteristics
- Episode identification
- reported crying | observed expressions consistent with crying | ambiguous | ruled out Separates an identification from the evidence and uncertainty supporting it.
- Expression channels
- Multiple values: visible tears | crying vocalisation | sobbing | facial expression | bodily movement | other described expression | not observable Describes how the episode manifests without treating a single expression as conclusive.
- Visible tear presentation
- not visible | eyes visibly wet | tears on cheeks | other described presentation | obscured | unknown Records visible evidence while distinguishing absence of observation from absence of tears.
- Temporal phase
- onset | ongoing | paused | resumed | expressions ceased | unknown Supports tracking change without equating cessation with emotional recovery.
- Observed duration
- Seconds or minutes, with observation interval and known or unknown onset and end Prevents a partial observation from being mistaken for the full episode.
- Reported emotional meaning
- Person's own terms; multiple, uncertain, undisclosed, or unavailable meanings permitted Avoids inferring sadness, relief, pain, or another experience solely from crying.
- Attributed precipitant
- Link to an event, sensation, thought, or interaction, with attribution source and certainty; none identified permitted Separates what preceded crying from what someone believes prompted it.
- Intentionality
- reported spontaneous | reported deliberate | reported mixed | unknown Allows enacted and spontaneous crying to be described without unsupported judgments about sincerity.
- Response preference
- company requested | privacy requested | specific help requested | no help requested | undecided | cannot currently communicate | unknown Guides action through expressed needs rather than assuming all crying calls for the same intervention.
Also called
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Also registered as vr.tr.crying
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 6 bundles · 11 layers · 18 findings · 28 questions.
Crying identification Establishes what supports calling an event crying and where that identification remains uncertain.
Tears, vocalisations, and emotional accounts can be available separately; the model must preserve their evidential limits.
Expression evidence
Captures the expressions actually observed or reported.
Crying expression profile
Record tears, vocalisations, facial expressions, and bodily expressions separately, including which channels could not be observed.
- Which expressions were observed or reported as part of this crying episode? measurement
- Who supplied the identification of crying, and through what observation or account? provenance
Lookalikes and representation
Separates crying from uncertain lookalikes and from representations of crying.
Crying boundary assessment
Record unresolved alternatives such as eye watering or laughter, and distinguish a live episode from a recording, recollection, or deliberate enactment.
- What supports identifying crying rather than eye watering, laughter, coughing, or another expression? boundary
- Is the agent encountering an episode directly, an account or depiction of one, or crying deliberately enacted in a performance? definition
Episode course Describes how crying unfolds, pauses, and ends within the available observation.
A brief glimpse cannot establish the duration or trajectory of crying, and silence does not establish recovery.
Onset and continuity
Locates the episode in time while preserving uncertain boundaries.
Crying episode boundaries
Record known onset, observation intervals, pauses, and resumptions without inventing continuity across gaps.
- When was crying first noticed, and is that time known to be its onset? measurement
- What supports treating resumed crying as part of this episode rather than a separate episode? boundary
Expression change and cessation
Tracks changes in expression separately from changes in personal experience.
Crying course and recovery
Describe changes in observable crying and record any account of settling, continuing distress, or another experience independently.
- How have tears, vocalisations, and sobbing changed during the observed interval? measurement
- If crying expressions have ceased, what does the person report about how they now feel? provenance
Experience and meaning Holds the person's account and attributed circumstances without assigning an emotion from appearance.
An agent needs to distinguish the fact of crying from explanations of what it means.
Personal account
Preserves the person's own description, including uncertainty or a wish not to explain.
Self-described crying experience
Record how the person describes the experience and whether crying feels spontaneous, deliberate, mixed, or difficult to characterise.
- How, if at all, does the person describe what this crying means or feels like? definition
- What has the person said about whether they intended to cry or can influence the crying? provenance
Precipitants and attributions
Connects crying to relevant circumstances while keeping causal interpretations explicit.
Attributed reason for crying
Separate preceding events from proposed reasons for crying and retain who offered each explanation.
- What event, thought, sensation, or interaction preceded the crying, if known? provenance
- Who attributes the crying to that circumstance, and what remains uncertain about the attribution? provenance
Crying in interaction Describes how crying relates to the immediate activity, audience, and ability to communicate.
Crying during an interaction may change participation needs without establishing an intended message or motive.
Participation during crying
Records the person's current ability and wish to continue the surrounding activity.
Crying and communication
Record whether the person can and wants to speak, listen, respond another way, or pause the interaction.
- Can the person communicate comfortably while crying, and what communication method do they prefer? measurement
- Do they want the current conversation or activity to continue, slow down, or pause? action
Audience and exposure
Captures who is present and the person's wishes about being seen, heard, or recorded while crying.
Crying privacy preferences
Record preferences about company, audience, recording, and disclosure without treating visible crying as permission to share it.
- Who can see or hear the crying, and has the person expressed a preference about their presence? provenance
- What permission exists to record or share this crying episode or its explanation? action
Response and reassessment Connects available help to expressed wishes and records what follows.
Responding to crying requires a stated aim and feedback; stopping visible crying is not a sufficient measure of whether help was welcome.
Requested support
Identifies the response the person wants and any separately evidenced need for other assistance.
Crying response choice
Record requests or accepted offers such as company, privacy, practical help, or a pause, and distinguish these from assumptions made by observers.
- What response has the person requested or accepted, including a request for no intervention? action
- Is any additional assistance indicated by an explicit request or evidence beyond crying itself? action
Response feedback
Evaluates assistance using the person's account alongside the episode's observable course.
Effect of response to crying
Record what was done, whether it was welcome, and subsequent changes without assuming the response caused those changes.
- What response occurred, and what feedback did the person give about it? provenance
- Should that response continue, change, or stop in light of the person's current wishes? action
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Kinds and varieties
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Emotional (psychic) crying in sadness, grief, frustration, or empathy
- Reflex or irritant tearing from ocular or nasal stimulation, without an emotional precipitant
- Infant signaling cry (hunger, pain, cold, isolation, overstimulation), which can occur before true emotional tears appear
- Pathological or involuntary crying, notably pseudobulbar affect after stroke or neurodegeneration
- Tears of joy, relief, reunion, or aesthetic emotion
- Ritual lamentation and organized mourning wails
- Excessive unexplained infant crying / colic (clinical working category, not a proven disease)
- Silent weeping versus sobbing (tears with versus without the characteristic respiratory-vocal motor pattern)
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of crying this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Identifiers and schemes
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Wikidata - Q152247 - Item for crying as the act of shedding tears / weeping.
- MeSH - D003431 - Heading Crying; National Library of Medicine.
- ICD-10-CM - R68.11 - Excessive crying of infant (symptom code, not a diagnosis of a mechanism).
- ICD-10-CM - R45.83 - Excessive crying of child, adolescent, or adult.
- SNOMED CT - 271594007 - Crying (finding); clinical finding code rather than a taxonomic species code.
- Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of crying this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Standards and regulation
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- ICD-10 / ICD-11 symptom classification of excessive crying - World Health Organization (with national clinical modifications such as ICD-10-CM by CDC/NCHS).
- Preventing Abusive Head Trauma Among Infants and Young Children (clinical report) - American Academy of Pediatrics.
- Clinical Knowledge Summary: Colic - infantile - National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (UK).
- Period of PURPLE Crying parent-education programme used in abusive-head-trauma prevention - National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome (widely adopted by hospitals; not an ISO standard).
- Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of crying this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Newborns and young infants use cry as the main distance signal to elicit feeding, carrying, and protection before language.
- Clinicians treat cry duration, consolability, and sometimes acoustics as signs of pain, infection, postoperative state, or neurological status.
- Adult crying is encountered in grief, conflict, psychotherapy, and as a credibility or empathy cue in legal, pastoral, and media settings.
- Funeral and lamentation practices organize public crying as a social duty rather than a private overflow.
- Caregiver-education programmes treat inconsolable infant crying as the principal trigger for shaken-baby injury.
- Acting and ritual performance treat crying as a produced expressive skill, not only as an involuntary leak.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of crying this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Infant cry fundamental frequency (F0) - about 400-600 (pain cries often higher, sometimes >800) - Hz
- Daily crying and fussing in healthy infants at the 5-8 week peak - about 1.5-3 (highly skewed; some infants far above) - hours per 24 h
- Wessel-type colic threshold used in clinics - ≥3 hours/day on ≥3 days/week for ≥3 weeks - hours per day
- Adult emotional crying episode duration - typically a few minutes, with a long tail - min
- Schirmer wetting (lacrimal output; not specific to emotional crying) - about 10-30 in a wet strip - mm in 5 min
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of crying this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Inconsolable infant crying is the most frequently reported trigger for abusive head trauma (shaken baby syndrome).
- Pseudobulbar affect produces socially disabling, mood-incongruent crying after stroke, ALS, MS, or brain injury and is often misread as depression.
- Alacrima (including familial dysautonomia) removes both ocular protection and the emotional tear display.
- Bogorad syndrome ("crocodile tears"): gustatory lacrimation from aberrant reinnervation after facial-nerve injury.
- Treating all infant crying as "colic" can delay recognition of infection, surgical abdomen, hair tourniquet, or corneal abrasion.
- Caregiver exhaustion and secondary mood disorder around a high-crying infant, even when no inflicted injury occurs.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of crying this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Display rules in much of Northern Europe and East Asia discourage public adult crying, especially by men; several Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Latin American mourning cultures expect loud lament.
- Irish keening, Greek moirologia, and various Jewish and Islamic funeral practices ritualize wailing, while some religious authorities simultaneously limit "excessive" wailing.
- Diary studies generally report more infant crying/fussing in "distal" care settings (separate sleep, less carrying) than in high-contact caregiving cultures.
- Everyday vocabulary does not always split weeping, sobbing, wailing, and tearless vocal distress the same way; clinical English "crying" therefore over-unifies those acts.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of crying this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Reflex tearing and epiphora (overflow from poor drainage) - Ocular irritation, foreign body, or punctal/nasolacrimal failure without an emotional precipitant or sobbing respiratory pattern; watering persists between emotional states.
- Laughter with tears - Precipitant is mirth; respiratory pattern is laughter bursts rather than the inspiratory gasp-expiratory sob of crying, though facial overflow can look similar.
- Pseudobulbar affect - Bouts are brief, stereotyped, and mood-incongruent or grossly disproportionate; neurological signs and a history of brain injury or motor-neuron disease separate it from grief- or depression-congruent crying.
- Normal infant crying peak versus colic - A 5-8 week peak of fussing is expected; colic is a duration/threshold label (e.g. Wessel) applied when crying is prolonged, unexplained, and consolability is poor - not a demonstrated separate mechanism.
- Neonatal vocal distress without tears - Very young neonates can produce a full cry voice before lacrimal emotional tearing is reliable; the vocal signal, not the tear, is the care elicitor.
- Diaphoresis and facial flushing - Autonomic face-wetting without lacrimal origin or the orbicularis/sob motor pattern; sweat chemistry and skin distribution differ from tears.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of crying this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Sources
- The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals - John Murray - Classic comparative account of weeping, infant crying, and the facial and respiratory pattern as an expressive behaviour, which still frames the distinction between tears and the full cry.
- Why Only Humans Weep: The Science of Crying - Oxford University Press - Current scientific synthesis of emotional crying as a human secretomotor-social behaviour, kinds of tearing, functions, and why adult weeping is not the same as infant cry.
- The neurobiology of human crying - Clinical Autonomic Research (Springer) - Neural and autonomic control of emotional tearing and sobbing, and the clinical neighbour relationship to pathological crying.
- The normal crying curve: what do we really know? - Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology - The age-related peak of infant crying/fussing around 5-8 weeks and the baseline against which "excessive" crying is judged.
- ICD-10-CM: R68.11 Excessive crying of infant; R45.83 Excessive crying of child, adolescent, or adult - CDC/NCHS - How clinical coding schemes name crying as a symptom rather than as a disease entity.
- Preventing Abusive Head Trauma Among Infants and Young Children - American Academy of Pediatrics - Infant crying as the leading reported trigger for shaken-baby / abusive-head-trauma injury and the regulatory-educational response.
What the second pass must settle
- What operational definition best distinguishes crying from isolated tears, vocal distress, and mixed laughing and crying across ages and communication contexts?
- What evidence supports reliable descriptions of crying intensity without equating visible or audible expression with subjective distress?
- How should pauses and resumptions define episode boundaries, and should those boundaries depend on the person's account?
- Which recognition and response assumptions require adaptation across cultures, developmental stages, disabilities, and individual expression patterns?
- How should this model handle response preferences when the person cannot communicate, while keeping caregiving authority and urgent assessment in neighbouring models?