T. Kollegak, Dr Takács Barnabás (/Digital Elite Inc./ (www.digitalElite.net <http://www.digitalelite.net/>) ) Addressing Psychological and Cognitive Tasks Using Virtual Faces cimmel tart eloadast a BME Kognitiv Tudomanyi Tsz-en. Jovo hetfon, 17.00 kezdettel. az eloadas absztraktjat mellekelem. Hely: BME, Kog. Tud. Tsz, Stoczek u 2, ST épület III. emelet 320. (http://www.cogsci.bme.hu/DoCS/kepek/bmemap.gif) Mindenkit szeretettel varunk. ------------ Addressing Psychological and Cognitive Tasks Using Virtual Faces To mimic the quality of everyday human communication and underlying processes, future research tools for psychology and cognitive research will need to go beyond photographs, Ekman faces and simple, cartoon-like drawings, by combining the /benefits of high visual fidelity animated digital faces /with /conversational intelligence/ and the ability to /modulate the emotions/ of their users in a personalized manner. Virtual human technology, computer graphics and digital perception have made considerable advancements during the past decades leading the way to create a humanoid interface that works by utilizing the natural means of interaction, e.g. words, gestures, glances and body language instead of traditional computer devices, such as the keyboard and mouse. require the ability to create believable digital humans capable of expressing the finest shades of emotions in a controllable manner. In addition, the same system must also be able to /read the users’ emotional reactions/ and adapt the behavior of the digital human accordingly in real-time. We implemented this concept as a step towards creating a novel solution called the /Virtual Human Interface (VHI)/. The /VHI/ builds upon many years of interdisciplinary research to create a /closed-loop model of interaction/ whereas the user’s internal state (emotion, level of attention, etc.) is constantly monitored and driven directly by the animated character with the purpose of creating emotional bonding. This emotional bonding then acts as a catalyst to help turning information into knowledge. In other words, our advanced user interface draws on emotions to help its users in the interaction process by intelligently tailoring its workload and constantly adapting its presentation strategies, hence the name /affective intelligence/. About the author Barnabás Takács, Ph.D. works in the field of human modeling, intelligent agents, computer graphics and animation, face recognition, motion tracking and computer vision. He published over 50 scientific and technical papers and regularly lectures at universities and institutes around the world. He has spent many years in developing cutting-edge technologies for the film and entertainment industries as well as for the scientific and research community. /Digital Elite Inc./ (www.digitalElite.net <http://www.digitalelite.net/>) was founded with the purpose of bringing real-time interactive virtual humans to every day people. Based on its technology a variety of virtual human applications have been developed and successfully deployed. Examples include digital plastic surgery (with Harvard University SPL, Boston, USA), virtual “Buddy” for autistic children (Catholic University of America, Washington D.C., USA), animated faces for psychiatric diagnosis and emotion research (Harvard University, Boston, USA, Semmelweis Medical University, Budapest), virtual patients for anatomical ultrasound guidance (U.S. Army Advanced Telemedicine Research), and virtual teachers (U.S. Dept. of Education). Dr. Takács is member of IEEE, ACM and the Los Angeles Chapter of SIGGRAPH. -- Gyula Kovács Dept. Cognitive Sciences Budapest Univ. Technology and Economics --------------------------------------- Budapest, Stoczek u 3, ST BDG III.318 Tel: 0036-1463-1176 Fax:0036-1463-1072 gkovacs(a)cogsci.bme.hu www.cogsci.bme.hu