HCI Group at UC Merced Presents

Benjamin Tag

Ph.D. Candidate

Graduate School of Media Design

Keio University, Japan

Friday, January 25, 2019 at 11:30 AM in COB 114

Physiological Sensing on the Face for inferring Cognitive States

Abstract

Awareness of fluctuating levels of cognitive performance measures will support better management of tasks, allow for the development of new adaptable user interfaces informed by cognitive states, and will potentially serve long term health of users by avoiding frustration resulting from mismatched task demand and available cognitive performance. Technology pervasively surrounds us and enables a virtually uninterrupted information retrieval and distribution, resulting in a constant communication between people and computers. One of the key functions of a computer is to support its user and react to input with the response expected or desired by the users, requiring an understanding of context. By using explicit and implicit input modalities we can increase the information density and allow computers to better interpret the user's context, making them context-aware. This research has mainly used consumer products, such as eyewear equipped with sensors for measuring eye movement, and infrared cameras and sensors to obtain measurements of changing facial temperature. We are showing that available solutions enable us to infer states of alertness, sustained attention, and cognitive workload. The concepts, results, and tools detailed in this research, can help professionals, researchers and students to gain insights into the potential of context-aware systems, here in particular cognition-aware systems.

Short Bio

Benjamin Tag is a Ph.D. candidate and researcher at the Graduate School of Media Design at Keio University. His research interest is located in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, with special focus on Cognition-Aware Systems. He is investigating ways to understand human cognition by combining methods from the fields of cognitive psychology and pervasive computing. Specifically, he is interested in using ubiquitous technologies to augment the process of knowledge acquisition through implementing proactive recommender and intervention systems.