In affective dialog simulation, recognition and interpretation of the affective state of the user should be integrated with display of empathy by the system and with dialog planning and execution. Cognitive models dealing with the inherent uncertainty of this interpretation are the method we propose to adopt. We describe how we integrated these models in an information-state approach to dialog modeling by illustrating, in particular, their application to a decision support system which is tailored to the ‘state of change’ of the user.