The research shows that by measuring a person’s movements as they use a computer, it is possible to judge their level of interest by monitoring whether they display the tiny movements<\/strong> that people usually constantly exhibit, known as non-instrumental movements.<\/p>\n If someone is absorbed in what they are watching or doing — what Dr Witchel calls ‘rapt engagement’ — there is a decrease in these involuntary movements<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Dr Witchel said: “Our study showed that when someone is really highly engaged in what they’re doing, they suppress these tiny involuntary movements. It’s the same as when a small child, who is normally constantly on the go, stares gaping at cartoons on the television without moving<\/strong> a muscle.<\/p>\n The discovery could have a significant impact on the development of artificial intelligence<\/strong>. Future applications could include the creation of online tutoring programmes that adapt to a person’s level of interest, in order to re-engage them if they are showing signs of boredom. It could even help in the development of companion robots, which would be better able to estimate a person’s state of mind.<\/p>\n Also, for experienced designers such as movie directors or game makers, this technology could provide complementary moment-by-moment reading of whether the events on the screen are interesting<\/strong>. While viewers can be asked subjectively what they liked or disliked, a non-verbal technology would be able to detect emotions or mental states that people either forget or prefer not to mention.<\/p>\n “Being able to ‘read’ a person’s interest in a computer program could bring real benefits to future digital learning, making it a much more two-way process,” Dr Witchel said. “Further ahead it could help us create more empathetic companion robots<\/strong>, which may sound very ‘sci fi’ but are becoming a realistic possibility within our lifetimes.”<\/p>\n In the study, 27 participants faced a range of three-minute stimuli on a computer, from fascinating games to tedious readings from EU banking regulation, while using a handheld trackball to minimise instrumental movements, such as moving the mouse. Their movements were quantified over the three minutes using video motion tracking<\/strong>. In two comparable reading tasks, the more engaging reading resulted in a significant reduction (42%) of non-instrumental movement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Sussex\u00a0media release: Computers are able to read a person’s body language to tell whether they are bored or interested in what they see on the screen,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[348],"tags":[179,42,13,363],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18816"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18825,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18816\/revisions\/18825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Computer](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/ComputerUser.jpg\")
Computers are able to read a person’s body language to tell whether they are bored or interested<\/strong> in what they see on the screen, according to a new study led by body-language expert Dr Harry Witchel, Discipline Leader in Physiology at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS).<\/p>\n