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Experimental Android App Determines Alertness By Examining Eyes (newatlas.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the eye-tracking dept.

An experimental new Android app developed by a team at Cornell University is designed to determine a person's alertness by examining their eyes. The app, called AlertnessScanner, utilizes a smartphone's front-facing camera to gauge the size of users' pupils. "When we're in an alert state, our sympathetic nervous system causes our pupils to dilate so that we can take in information more easily," reports New Atlas. "On the other hand, when we're tired, our parasympathetic nervous system causes our pupils to contract." From the report: In an initial study, test subjects were prompted to use the app to manually take photos of their pupils, once every three hours. Additionally, six times a day they completed a five-minute phone-based Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT), which is an established method of gauging reaction time. When the results of the two alertness-testing methods were compared, they were found to be very similar. That said, it was determined that most people wouldn't like having to make a point of using the app so many times every day. Additionally, in order to properly image the test subjects' pupils, the infrared filters of the phones' cameras had to be removed. The researchers managed to address these problems by changing it so that the app automatically takes a one-second-long burst of 30 pupil photos whenever users unlock their phones; and using a larger 13-megapixel front-facing camera.

22 comments

  1. I hope this tech doesnâ(TM)t become a standar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some of us have eye disorders that could throw this gear off. There is a reason I see an opthomologist regularly. I can see a future with this gear needed to turn on a car or something and thatâ(TM)s not nessissarily good.

  2. A good hit from that bong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    and your pupils will be wide open.

    1. Re: A good hit from that bong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yours were when my dick was in your mouth.

  3. Progress never stops... by Nemosoft+Unv. · · Score: 2

    So now I need a phone to tell me I'm tired? Wow, that's some serious progress.

    --
    "Fix it? It has been disintegrated, by definition it cannot be fixed!" - Gru in Despicable Me.
    1. Re: Progress never stops... by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

      Pretty sure the Galaxy S4 could tell if your looking at the screen so as to turn it off or not. So this is basically already in existence... On an S4? But hey cool "invention" right?

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
  4. PLEASE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't tell my employer about this.

  5. I'm reminded of this ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... story.

    A high school in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province located on the eastern coast of China, has employed facial recognition technology to monitor students' attentiveness in class, local media reports.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  6. pupils ? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    causes our pupils to dilate so that we can take in information more easily.

    What ? How does that work exactly ? Bigger hole = more bandwidth ?

    1. Re: pupils ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ask your mom

    2. Re:pupils ? by burningcpu · · Score: 1

      The pupils expand and contract to regulate the amount of light hitting the sensor. A fuzzier image is produced if the brain ratchets up the gain to the sensor, rather than adjusting the incoming light.

      A fuzzier image requires more processing power to parse.

    3. Re:pupils ? by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      If bigger pupil is better, why aren't they always big ?

      Anybody with some experience in photography knows that bigger pupil/aperture results in fuzzier image. You lose depth of field. Also, the further you go out to the edge of the lens, the more distortion and aberration you get. On the other hand, tiny aperture is also bad because of diffraction effects.

    4. Re:pupils ? by burningcpu · · Score: 1

      Ok, but when is that 'rule' not the case? In low light conditions, where you either have no sensor response with low gain and low aperture, blurry sensor response with high gain and low aperture, or a middle ground.

    5. Re:pupils ? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Sure, but in low light conditions, pupil is already maximally dilated, even when not in an alert state.

      The point is that it doesn't make sense for pupil to be in suboptimal state when not alert. It doesn't cost anything.

  7. Re:I hope this tech doesnâ(TM)t become a stan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you have eye disorders you shouldn't be driving obviously.

  8. Re:I hope this tech doesnâ(TM)t become a stan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can see a future

    AHA! There's nothing wrong with your eyes, you hypochondriac.

  9. Android device with a camera pointed at me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No thank you.

  10. Advertising by olsmeister · · Score: 1

    How long until someone decides it would be a good idea for the phone to monitor your pupil size and correlate that with which ads are viewed on the screen and phones home about which ads elicited a response in order to 'provide you with more relevant offers.'

    1. Re:Advertising by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      LMDDGTFY. Already done, log ago.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  11. Re:I hope this tech doesnâ(TM)t become a stan by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    This probably won't work for me, since I keep my eyes closed while at work.

  12. Software with no App link? WTF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So no link to the App is weak sauce. Apparently they called it WakeApp (googling leads to a mess of unrelated links though)

    So buried in the PDF is a link

    https://bitbucket.org/vtseng/alertnessscanner/

    which suggests this is an iPhone app as there is xcode stuff, no android even though the paper suggests it was android?

  13. Coming to a workplace near you ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Smith! You need to stay off the netflix and computer games or you'll be sacked!