Ehsan is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Rochester. His research revolves primarily around improving human and computer interaction. His website, www.rocspeak.com, captures speeches via webcam and then offers automated feedback. Ehsan explains how future implementations could range from public speaking practice for students on the Autism spectrum to customer service training for corporations.
Transcript
>> My name is Ehsan Hoque. I'm an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Rochester. So I'm fascinated by human emotion. I want computers to be able to understand and respond to human emotion, so there's a basic research going on there. We publish papers, supervise Ph.D. students, provide outreach services, so that's on the research side, and on the teaching side, I teach classes on human-computer interaction, interactive machine learning, exposing new ideas to the students and inspire their desire. So I want people to interact with computers in a natural way. I want the interaction to be conversation, just like to be -- to a human. And how could technology enable that possibility? How could technology alleviate some of the frustration that we have while we engage with the technology? So that one aspect of research. And the second aspect is: How could this technology add value to your daily life? Now, we have built a prototype where now you can go to a website, turn on your webcam and practice speaking, and the system automatically gives you feedback on your smile intensity, volume modulation, body language, word usage, word cloud, and many other dimensions. Other application could be helping individuals who may have Asperger's syndrome. It's a variation of autism. Many of these individuals love to get some feedback, but they fear social stigma, and I think there's a sweet spot for automated technology to be helpful. So I teach one class per semester, so that's twice a week. I -- before the class, I spend around three hours preparing for the lecture, preparing my jokes, making sure that I have the appropriate breaks. And teaching is all about engagement. It's not just I'm there providing information. It's about: How do I engage the people that's right in front of me and then be able to learn together? And that requires a lot of practice, a lot of rehearsing, so I do that a lot before -- even though lecture is one hour, 15 minutes, the preparation prior to that is more than three hours.
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