Emotions are an intrinsic part of communications. But machines don’t have, perceive or react to them, which makes us – their handlers – hot under the collar. But thanks to building blocks developed by European researchers, machines that ‘feel’ may no longer be confined to science fiction. Nearly everybody has to communicate with machines at some level, be it mobile phones, personal computers or annoying, automated customer support ‘solutions’. But the communication is on the machine’s terms, not the person’s. The problem is easy enough to identify: prodigious increases in processing power, giving machines greater capacities and capabilities, have not been matched by a similar leap forward in interface technology. Although researchers around the world have been working on making the human-machine interface more user friendly, most of the progress has been on the purely mechanical side. The Humaine project has come at the problem from a quite different angle to earlier, unsatisfactory attempts. It has brought together specialists and scholars from very different disciplines to create the building blocks or tools needed to give machines so-called ‘soft’ skills.
The psychologists studied and interpreted the signals people give out, signifying different emotional states from boredom through to rage. Part of this is simply what is being said, but there is also the tone in which it is being said, the expression on the face, and smaller signals like eye gaze, hand gestures and posture. Put all of these together and it is then possible for the psychologists and IT professionals to work together on a database which allows the interpretation of, and reaction to, emotion. This is a simplistic explanation of a highly complex project which might not come to full fruition for another 20 or 30 years, although there are already concrete results and applications of some of the technological threads the project has come up with. Designers have also used the techniques to monitor the emotions of people playing video games and improve the design accordingly. Possible applications include learner-centred teaching, where students’ interest levels can be monitored and responded to, and more user-friendly manuals for, say, installing computer software.More information:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080412175657.htm