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."

Nice, but...

[SirBruce]

Hell, I'd like to get one of these devices for myself. But I have a feeling it would generate way too many false positives, or perhaps more importantly, inconsequential positives. The are times when people are bored, but they're trying to be polite and conversational, and pressuring them to make them more interested in what you're saying isn't going to help. Also, although this device may help an autistic person know the other person isn't engaged, do they even know what to do in order to facilitate engagement?

Bruce

Re:So Simple?

[Billosaur]

You misunderstand autism. This has nothing to do with memory. Autistic people do not have the facial expression recognition algorithms that most humans have. So someone has implemented such an algorithm on a computer, and then the computer tells the autistic person what the expression means.

I worked with the autistic population for about 7 years. I think it has not been established that autistic people lack facial expression recognition algorithms. From what I've seen, they cannot interpret what they see, lacking the ability to integrate facial expressions of others with their own feelings, and use that to create a picture of what someone else is feeling. The autistic individual tends to treat everything as an object, and they can recognize form and substance, but not emotionality. However, they can learn it, given enough conditioning and reinforcement, albeit it is very artificial and prone to error if certain situations occur which were not anticipated. This device may work as an excellent training tool for those who can use it properly, but it won't solve the problem in the long run.

Re:So Simple?

[Autistic]

I agree, but I think there is a little more to it.

I certainly do not see as much from peoples faces as other people can. But I can see a little. I can see stronger emotions than boredom.

But the other side is knowing that some type of response is necessary and what that response should be. I may see that someone is angry or is sad, but I don't necessarily know what to do about it. I don't know whether to try to approach and help or stand back and wait. Often times, the hesitation of response is seen as lack of understanding.

So I get accused of not detecting emotion a lot more than is the case. I can see it, but I don't necessarily respond to it in a way that would be expected. I'll do the wrong thing, or if I know that has failed too many times before, I'll do nothing at all.

You are exactly right

[gurutc]

The only way to function with Aspergers is to consciouly learn to read expressions. It is a power tool if you choose to use it that way. But it is the dark side because it keeps you from having real interaction and backfires completely when you tire. And it is a hell of a lot of work. Aspergers sucks

Some tricks I use

[Tipa]

I have two things I do:

One is, stop talking after a couple of minutes, no matter what.

Second is, try to remember what it is the person wanted to know before I started talking to them about whatever I was thinking about when they started talking.

That's a tough one for me. I have to go back and try to remember why they are there. I need a lot more time to shift gears than people are generally willing to allow.

Re:You are exactly right

[bnenning]

Can you define "NT" versus "non-NT"?

I believe in this context NT is "neurotypical", meaning not Aspergers/autistic.