Rosalind Picard
Encyclopedia
Affective computing
Affective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer sciences, psychology, and cognitive science...
Research Group at the MIT Media Lab
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...
, and co-director of the Things That Think Consortium. In 2005, she was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...
.
Picard is credited with starting the branch of computer science known as affective computing
Affective computing
Affective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer sciences, psychology, and cognitive science...
with the publication of Affective Computing. This textbook described the importance that recognizing human emotions has to relationships between people, and the possible effects of such recognition by robots. Her work in this field has led to an expansion into autism
Autism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
research and developing devices that could help humans recognize nuances in human emotions.
Academics
Picard holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineeringElectrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
and a certificate in computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...
(1984), and master's (1986) and doctorate degrees (1991), both in electrical engineering and computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, from MIT. Her thesis was titled Texture Modeling: Temperature Effects on Markov/Gibbs Random Fields. She has been a member of the faculty at the MIT Media Laboratory since 1991, with tenure since 1998 and a full professorship since 2005.
Picard is a researcher in the field of affective computing
Affective computing
Affective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer sciences, psychology, and cognitive science...
and the founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...
. The Affective Computing Research Group develops tools, techniques, and devices for sensing, interpreting, and processing emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
signals that drive state-of-the-art systems which respond intelligently
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
to human emotional states. The key aspect that Picard focuses on in her research is not in the difference between "excited" and "calm" emotions, but in the difference between "excited-happy" and "excited-angry-or-upset", which are complicated for a computer to determine. Applications of their research include improved tutoring systems and assistive technology for use in addressing the verbal communications difficulties experienced by individuals with autism.
She also works with Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a sociologist...
and Cynthia Breazeal
Cynthia Breazeal
Cynthia Lynn Breazeal is an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is the director of the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Laboratory...
in the fields of social robot
Social robot
A social robot is an autonomous robot that interacts and communicates with humans or other autonomous physical agents by following social behaviors and rules attached to its role. This definition suggests that a social robot must have a physical embodiment . Recently some robots have been developed...
s, digital image processing
Digital image processing
Digital image processing is the use of computer algorithms to perform image processing on digital images. As a subcategory or field of digital signal processing, digital image processing has many advantages over analog image processing...
, pattern recognition
Pattern recognition
In machine learning, pattern recognition is the assignment of some sort of output value to a given input value , according to some specific algorithm. An example of pattern recognition is classification, which attempts to assign each input value to one of a given set of classes...
, and wearable computer
Wearable computer
Wearable computers are miniature electronic devices that are worn by the bearer under, with or on top of clothing. This class of wearable technology has been developed for general or special purpose information technologies and media development...
s. Picard's former students includes Steve Mann
Steve Mann
Steven Mann , is a tenured professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto.-Education:...
, professor and researcher in wearable computers.
Affective Computing
While working in the field of affective computing, Picard published Affective Computing. MIT's press release for Picard's textbook states, "According to Rosalind Picard, if we want computers to be genuinely intelligent and to interact naturally with us, we must give computers the ability to recognize, understand, even to have and express emotions."Picard explains the need to monitoring emotional cues and how this is present with humans when she states:
- "Whatever his strategy, the good teacher detects important affective cues from the student and responds differently because of them. For example, the teacher might leave subtle hints or clues for the student to discover, thereby preserving the learner's sense of self-propelled discovery. Whether the subject matter involves deliberate emotional expression as is the case with music, or is a "non-emotional" topic such as science, the teacher that attends to a student's interest, pleasure, and distress is perceived as more effective than the teacher that proceeds callously. The best teachers know that frustration usually precedes quitting, and know how to redirect or motivate the pupil at such times. They get to know their student, including how much distress that student can withstand before learning breaks down."
But such emotional cues are not part of robotic intelligence.
In order to portray how such a recognition would alter interactions with robots, Picard gave an example situation:
- Imagine your robot entering the kitchen as you prepare breakfast for guests. The robot looks happy to see you and greets you with a cheery "Good morning." You mumble something it does not understand. It notices your face, vocal tone, smoke above the stove, and your slamming of a pot into the sink, and infers that you do not appear to be having a good morning. Immediately, it adjusts its internal state to "subdued," which has the effect of lowering its vocal pitch and amplitude settings, eliminating cheery behavioral displays, and suppressing unnecessary conversation. Suppose you exclaim, "Ow!!" yanking your hand from the hot stove, rushing to run your fingers under cold water, adding "I can't believe I ruined the sauce." While the robot's speech recognition may not have high confidence that it accurately recognized all of your words, its assessment of your affect and actions indicates a high probability that you are upset and maybe hurt.
In such a situation, it is necessary for the robots to understand the emotional aspects of humans in order to better serve their intended purpose.
Her work has influenced many fields beyond computer science, ranging from video games to law. One critic, Aaron Sloman
Aaron Sloman
Aaron Sloman is a philosopher and researcher on artificial intelligence and cognitive science. He is the author of several papers on philosophy, epistemology and artificial intelligence...
, described the book as having a "bold vision" that will inspire some and irritate others. Other critics emphasize the importance behind the work as it establishes an important framework for the field as a whole. Picard responded to Sloman's review by saying, "I don’t think the review captures the flavor of the book. However, he does raise interesting points, as well as potential misunderstandings, both of which I am grateful for the opportunity to comment on."
Autism research
Besides researching robotic intelligence, Picard has performed research in the field of autismAutism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
. Her team uses an "ESP", or "emotional-social intelligence prosthesis", which is a tool that allows a person with autism to monitor their own facial reactions in order to educate them on social cues in others. This device has a 65% accuracy rate for reading the emotional state of an individual. She revealed parts of this technology at the 11th Annual International Symposium on Wearable Computers.
Religion and science
Picard says that she was raised an atheist, but converted to Christianity as a young adult. She does not believe there is a separation of the "material body and immaterial spirit" but that there is "something else that we haven't discovered yet", and believes "that scientists cannot assume that nothing exists beyond what they can measure." She believes it likely that there is "still something more" to life, beyond what we have discovered, and sees DNADNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
as too complex to have originated through "purely random processes". To her, the complexity of DNA shows "the mark of intervention," and "a much greater mind, a much greater scientist, a much greater engineer behind who we are." She sees her religious beliefs as playing a role in her work in affective computing, and explains that when "Digging into the models of how the emotions work, I find I feel even greater awe and appreciation for the way we are made, and therefore for the Maker that has brought this about."
Picard is one of the signatories of the Discovery Institute
Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is a statement issued in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, a conservative non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, USA, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design.The statement expresses skepticism about the ability of random...
, a petition which the intelligent design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
uses to promote intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
by attempting to cast doubt on evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
. Although her view about the complexity of DNA "sounds similar to the intelligent design debate", reporter Mirko Petricevic writes, "Picard has some reservations about intelligent design, saying it isn't being sufficiently challenged by Christians and other people of faith." She argues that the media has created a false dilemma
False dilemma
A false dilemma is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options...
by dividing everyone into two groups, supporters of intelligent design or evolution. "To simply put most of us in one camp or the other does the whole state of knowledge a huge disservice," she said.
Awards
- Georgia Engineering Foundation Fellowship(s) 1980, 81, 82, 83
- Society of Women Engineers: “The Outstanding Woman Engineering Student” 1981, 82, 83, 84
- National Science Foundation Fellow 1984
- AT&T Bell Laboratories “One Year On Campus” Fellow 1984
- Georgia Institute of Technology Department of Electrical Engineering Faculty Award 1984
- Voted Omicron Delta Kappa, Georgia Tech and Southeast U. S. “Leader of the Year” 1984
- AAUW “The Outstanding Georgia Institute of Technology Woman Graduate” 1984
- IAPR Pattern Recognition Society Best Paper Prize (with Tom Minka) 1991
- GA Tech College of Engineering “Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni Award” 1995
- NEC Career Development Chair in Computers and Communications 1992, 96
- Assoc. of American Publishers, Inc. Computer Science Book Award, (Hon. Mention) 1997
- Senior Member of IEEE 2000
- ICALT 2001 Best Theory Paper Prize (with Rob Reilly and Barry Kort) 2001
- Creapole’s Committee of Honour (Paris) 2002
- Fellow of IEEE 2004
- Chamblee High School Hall of Fame 2005
- Groden Network Distinguished Honorees, Research Award 2008
Notable articles
- T.P. Minka and R.W. Picard (1997), "Interactive Learning Using a 'Society of Models,'" Pattern Recognition, Volume 30, No. 4, pp. 565–581, 1997. (Winner of 1997 Pattern Recognition Society Award)
- B. Kort, R. Reilly and R.W. Picard (2001), "An Affective Model of Interplay Between Emotions and Learning: Reengineering educational Pedagogy-Building a Learning Companion," In Proceedings of International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2001), August 2001, Madison, WI. (Winner of Best Paper Prize.)
Patents and patents pending
- “Method and Apparatus for Relating and Combining Multiple Images of the Same Scene or Object(s)” U.S. Patent 5,706,416. Issued January 6, 1998. (With Steve Mann.)
- “Sensing and Display of Skin Conductivity” U.S. Patent 6415176. Issued July 2, 2002. (With Jocelyn Scheirer, Nancy Tilbury and Jonathan Farringdon.)
- “System and Method for Determining a Workload Level of a Driver” (With Walton L. Fehr, Judith L. Gardner and John R. Hansman) Docket No. IS01739AIC
See also
- Affective computingAffective computingAffective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer sciences, psychology, and cognitive science...
- AutismAutismAutism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
- Digital image processingDigital image processingDigital image processing is the use of computer algorithms to perform image processing on digital images. As a subcategory or field of digital signal processing, digital image processing has many advantages over analog image processing...
- Pattern recognitionPattern recognitionIn machine learning, pattern recognition is the assignment of some sort of output value to a given input value , according to some specific algorithm. An example of pattern recognition is classification, which attempts to assign each input value to one of a given set of classes...
- Social robotSocial robotA social robot is an autonomous robot that interacts and communicates with humans or other autonomous physical agents by following social behaviors and rules attached to its role. This definition suggests that a social robot must have a physical embodiment . Recently some robots have been developed...
s - Wearable computerWearable computerWearable computers are miniature electronic devices that are worn by the bearer under, with or on top of clothing. This class of wearable technology has been developed for general or special purpose information technologies and media development...
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