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Abstract:
(PLENARY TALK)
Research in affective computing aims to give computers the
skills of emotional intelligence, such as the ability to recognize,
express, and in some cases "have" emotions. I will highlight our
recent efforts to give computers the ability to recognize and
respond intelligently to people's emotional expressions. Present
results include wearable computers with customized pattern
recognition software, such as eyeglasses that communicate
expressions of confusion or interest, and a wearable "StartleCam"
that records pictures based on the orientation response of the
wearer, providing one indication of what gets the wearer's
attention. I will also describe new software that responds to
frustrated users with a careful mix of empathy, sympathy, and other
skills of emotional intelligence. This "emotionally savvy" software
significantly improved users' willingness to interact with the
system, as measured in a behavioral study involving 70 subjects,
two control conditions, and a frustrating computer scenario.
Rosalind W. Picard earned a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering
with highest honors from the Georgia Institute of Technology in
1984, and was named a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow.
She worked as a Member of the Technical Staff at AT&T Bell
Laboratories from 1984-1987, where she designed VLSI DSP chips and
developed new methods of image compression and analysis. Picard
earned the Masters and Doctorate, both in Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science, from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) in 1986 and 1991, respectively. In 1991 she joined
the MIT Media Laboratory as an Assistant Professor, and in 1992 was
appointed to the NEC Development Chair in Computers and
Communications. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1995,
and awarded tenure at MIT in 1998. The author of over 60
peer-reviewed scientific publications in pattern recognition,
multidimensional signal modeling, and computer vision, Picard is
known internationally for pioneering research into digital
libraries and content-based video retrieval. She is co-recipient
with Tom Minka of a "best paper" prize (1998) from the Pattern
Recognition Society for their work on interactive machine learning
with multiple models. Dr. Picard guest edited the IEEE Transactions
on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence special issue on
Digital Libraries: Representation and Retrieval, and edited the
proceedings of the first IEEE Workshop on Content-Based Access of
Image and Video Libraries, for which she served as Chair. She
presently serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on Pattern
Analysis and Machine Intelligence, as well as on several scientific
program committees and review boards. Her recent book, Affective
Computing, (MIT Press, 1997) lays the groundwork for giving
machines the skills of emotional intelligence.
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