LONDON: A computer that is capable of reading people's mind is being developed by British and American scientists. It will be capable of understanding and inferring even a raised eyebrow or a questioning look of the person, say the scientists from the University of Cambridge, England and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S., who are involved in the project.
Prof Peter Robinson of the University of Cambridge said the computer will be able to read a person's thoughts by analyzing facial movements that represent underlying feelings.
Robinson and his team of scientists believe the applications of such a computer can be varied -- like improving the driving skills and understanding the moods of people so that advertisements can be designed accordingly.
Robinson said the system the team has developed allows a wide range of mental states to be identified just by "pointing a video camera at someone."
The scientists have already programmed the computer to recognize different facial expressions of actors relating to various emotions. They now intend to feed more data to determine finer emotions and mental states of people. The program takes data from a camera to identify 24 facial "feature points" and some 20 key facial movements, like a nod of the head or a tweak or a raise of the eyebrow, which are then related to underlying emotions.
The scientists plan to get the system programmed to accept other aspects like a person's postures and gestures. A prototype was unveiled at a science exhibition in London Monday, organized by the Royal Society.
Robinson says the computer can be helpful in online teaching -- to assess the extent of understanding of a student of what had been explained by analyzing his or her facial expressions.
The scientists hope to make use of the visitors to the exhibition in feeding various emotions and facial expressions into the computer.
