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Device Developed To Help Socially Challenged
An anonymous reader writes "A device from MIT Media Labs that can pick up on people's emotions is being developed to help people with autism relate to those around them. It will alert its autistic user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed." From the article: "The 'emotional social intelligence prosthetic' device, which El Kaliouby is constructing along with MIT colleagues Rosalind Picard and Alea Teeters, consists of a camera small enough to be pinned to the side of a pair of glasses, connected to a hand-held computer running image recognition software plus software that can read the emotions these images show. If the wearer seems to be failing to engage his or her listener, the software makes the hand-held computer vibrate."
According to TFA, autistic people cannot discern or interpret a bored look on someone's face, but can realize that feeling a vibration in their hand means that someone is bored. Using a camera (to detect boredom) means that the autistic person is looking at the person he is speaking to. It's interesting that a human could receive image data and be unable to remember what it means, but receive touch data and be able to remember its meaning. If this interaction is correct, then a big high five to the geniuses that found the vibration communication channel into autistic minds. Of course if this is not the case, how will a vibrator help? This sounds like an unlikely solution to me, but I have not studied autism. Perhaps, the importance of this study is not that it will actually help autistic people, but that our face recognition capabilities are getting to the point of being useable in today's society. -C
What's interesting about devices that provide behavioral feedback is that unless the user isn't aware of the device, their own actions end up reacting not only to external environmental events, but to the feedback of the device itself.
So if the autistic user finds the device annoying, they may engage their eyes briefly to suppress the vibrating alaram. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are paying attention. Their concentration is then shifted to supressing the device.
I am wondering if this is something that would work best as an implant. The user could be trained from an early age that this feedback mechanism is an extension of themself.
Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ -- Exercise for Web 2.0
I'd like to see some statistics on the accuracy of this device.
Sounds like a horrible idea, the subject matter is so incredibly subjective, and human emotions are so incredibly fickle, laced with an infinite and exponential number of variables that determine what anything 'means' from someone, to someone else.
Plus, does this help the autistic person learn more about people, or make them more dependent upon a machine?
In my mind, something like this only worsens autism because it prevents the individual from having to 'learn how to understand alien stimuli' by interpreting it for them.
I use to baby sit / care for one of my friends little brother, he was diagnosed with severe autism at an early age. Watching him grow older, in my eyes, he learned how to understand new things on his own (just sometimes it took a little longer than it does for most kids his age), like how the rest of us learn things (cause & effect / trial and error) it's not impossible for autistic individuals to perceive and comprehend this kind of stimuli, they just receive it on a different wavelength than we do, and in turn process it in a different manner.
A device like this isn't going to 'teach' anyone anything, it's simply a crutch that IMHO, will stifle development and learning.
As a side note, to me autism is a type of genius, that we just don't know how to comprehend as a society, this kid could do some of the most AMAZING things with number letter combinations / geometrical shapes I've ever seen.
It's interesting that a human could receive image data and be unable to remember what it means, but receive touch data and be able to remember its meaning.
The issue isn't memory, its recognition. Those suffering from autism may not be able to connect to the people around them on a more emotional level, however vibration like from a ringtone is a que to stop doing whatever it is you are doing. It makes perfect sense that someone could not recognize the emotional state of another, but could easily recognize the vibration of a mobile device.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
See Ken Perlins page (yes, the Perlin noise guy) and check out the face applet. At the bottom there is a link to a story how it can help autistic children learn how to interpret peoples facial expressions. Best of all it's free.
After much reading of liturature in various fields of artificial intelligence, emergence, chaos theory, network theory, psychology, etc - I have come to believe that recognizing this is paramount to understanding how the human mind works (as well as how it doesn't). Those with Asperger's and others on the autistic spectrum can use this knowledge, along with reason and logic, to almost scary benefit to themselves, if they so choose.
In a way, proper use of this knowledge is directly akin to application of the ideas inherent in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). In essence, since you, as a non-NT individual, may need to be able to conciously "see" (and learn to understand) others emotions, as well as conciously "playback" similar emotions based on other cues - you have at hand a very useful tool to control other people, if you can understand and master it. Because those patterns you playback will cause the other individuals or group to recognize (in an unconscious manner, for most) the pattern, and play back others. What we think of as "free will" is not so much randomness in what we think we are doing, but pattern recognition and playback of patterns in a network of complex emergent social interactions in an environment of (mathematical) chaos. Non-NT individuals are among the only ones in a group who can use this knowledge to their advantage. In NLP training (which is something which seeks to train non-NT individuals to recognize what an NT individual already has practice with), the goal is recognize these body, facial, and verbal cues of others, and to utilize your own, in a manner to direct and control the responses of other people.
Done right, what can be accomplished seems amazing. With enough practice, you can almost get people to do things for you that they themselves wouldn't ordinarily do, and they do them willingly! Mind control? Jedi-like power?
Not at all - you are simply using the pattern recognition and playback capabilities within the mind of a human organism(s) in a manner concious to yourself. Hacking others brains, emotions, and desires, if you will. Some might call that unethical. Why is it ok if everyone (NTs) already do it unconsciously, but not if you (a non-NT) do it consciously? In the end, it doesn't matter, because they can't really control it (unless they are non-NT as well, and recognize what you are doing).
Your wish is their command...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon