Empathic Agent Technology (EAT)

A new view on empathic agents is introduced, named: Empathic Agent Technology (EAT). It incorporates a speech analysis, which provides an indication for the amount of tension present in people. It is founded on an indirect physiological measure for the amount of experienced stress, defined as the variability of the fundamental frequency of the human voice. A thorough review of literature is provided on which the EAT is founded. In addition, the complete processing line of this measure is introduced. Hence, the first generally applicable, completely automated technique is introduced that enables the development of truly empathic agents

Ubiquitous emotion-aware computing

Emotions are a crucial element for personal and ubiquitous computing. What to sense and how to sense it, however, remain a challenge. This study explores the rare combination of speech, electrocardiogram, and a revised Self-Assessment Mannequin to assess people’s emotions. 40 people watched 30 International Affective Picture System pictures in either an office or a living-room environment. Additionally, their personality traits neuroticism and extroversion and demographic information (i.e., gender, nationality, and level of education) were recorded. The resulting data were analyzed using both basic emotion categories and the valence--arousal model, which enabled a comparison between both representations. The combination of heart rate variability and three speech measures (i.e., variability of the fundamental frequency of pitch (F0), intensity, and energy) explained 90% (p < .001) of the participants’ experienced valence--arousal, with 88% for valence and 99% for arousal (ps < .001). The six basic emotions could also be discriminated (p < .001), although the explained variance was much lower: 18–20%. Environment (or context), the personality trait neuroticism, and gender proved to be useful when a nuanced assessment of people’s emotions was needed. Taken together, this study provides a significant leap toward robust, generic, and ubiquitous emotion-aware computing

Emotional Prosody Measurement (EPM): A voice-based evaluation method for psychological therapy effectiveness

The voice embodies three sources of information: speech, the identity, and the emotional state of the speaker (i.e., emotional prosody). The latter feature is resembled by the variability of the F0 (also named fundamental frequency of pitch) (SD F0). To extract this feature, Emotional Prosody Measurement (EPM) was developed, which consists of 1) speech recording, 2) removal of speckle noise, 3) a Fourier Transform to extract the F0-signal, and 4) the determination of SD F0. After a pilot study in which six participants mimicked emotions by their voice, the core experiment was conducted to see whether EPM is successful. Twenty-five patients suffering from a panic disorder with agoraphobia participated. Two methods (storytelling and reliving) were used to trigger anxiety and were compared with comparable but more relaxed conditions. This resulted in a unique database of speech samples that was used to compare the EPM with the Subjective Unit of Distress to validate it as measure for anxiety/stress. The experimental manipulation of anxiety proved to be successful and EPM proved to be a successful evaluation method for psychological therapy effectiveness

Multimedia techniques for device and ambient intelligence: A continuing endeavor

The edited volume "Multimedia techniques for device and ambient intelligence" consists of two parts: i) an introduction to a variety of basic low level image processing techniques, leaving aside other modalities, and ii) work on high level, knowledge based processing, including interesting chapters on context aware computing and graph based pattern recognition. However, in the search for ambient multimedia techniques, the book can only partly redeem its promise

Affective computing: a reverence for a century of research

To bring affective computing a leap forward, it is best to start with a step back. A century of research has been conducted on topics, which are crucial for affective computing. Understanding this vast amount of research will accelerate progress on affective computing. Therefore, this article provides an overview of the history of affective computing. The complexity of affect will be described by discussing i) the relation between body and mind, ii) cognitive processes (i.e., attention, memory, and decision making), and iii) affective computing's I/O. Subsequently, definitions are provided of affect and related constructs (i.e., emotion, mood, interpersonal stances, attitude, and personality traits) and of affective computing. Perhaps when these elements are embraced by the community of affective computing, it will us a step closer in bridging its semantic gap. © 2012 Springer-Verlag

Intelligent tutoring agent for settlers of Catan

An Intelligent Tutoring Agent (ITA) for the board game Settlers of Catan (SoC) is introduced. It uses CLIPS knowledge bases, connected by JCLIPS to a JAVA implementation of SoC. It is founded on a new theoretical framework that describes the development of negotiation skills in children. Using this framework, the ITA helps children in developing negotiation skills through play, which makes it unique in its kind

Biofeedback systems for stress reduction: Towards a Bright Future for a Revitalized Field

Stress has recently been baptized as the black death of the 21st century, which illustrates its threat to current health standards. This article proposes biofeedback systems as a means to reduce stress. A concise state-ofthe-art introduction on biofeedback systems is given. The field of mental health informatics is introduced. A compact state-of-the-art introduction on stress (reduction) is provided. A pragmatic solution for the pressing societal problem of illness due to chronic stress is provided in terms of closed loop biofeedback systems. A concise set of such biofeedback systems for stress reduction is presented. We end with the identification of several development phases and ethical concerns