Avatar Can Sense Depression

Apr-06-13 An avatar psychologist able to detect depression from a person’s facial cues could be used to help clinicians recognize these micro-signs during interviews.

The system was developed at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, and is based off a Kinect-driven avatar called SimSensei. By tracking the person’s facial movements, linguistic patterns and acoustics in real time, the SimSensei is able to pick up on the signs of depression, such as fidgeting, averted eyes and fewer smiles.

The SimSensei will be presented at the Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition conference in Shanghai later in the month, where researchers are competing to determine who can build the most accurate virtual system for diagnosing depression.

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[DISCOVERY.COM]

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