US Patent 7182601 Interactive toy and methods for exploring emotional experience

An educational, interactive toy that symbolically represents emotions through visual, kinesthetic, and linguistic means. The toy includes a plurality of playpieces. Each playpiece is generally symbolic of a particular emotion, e.g., love, happy, sad, mad, and scared, respectively. The toy also includes a container having a storage chamber into which the playpieces may be independently stored or withdrawn during the course of play. The toy helps an individual understand that the process of emotional experience occurs when individual emotions are named, verbalized, and expressed via a combination of one or more of action, language, facial expression, and/or voice tone. The toy invites children to name and express specific emotions.