Inaugral Lecture: : Prof Nadia Berthouze: Bringing affect into technology: the case of physical rehabilitation

Speaker: Prof Nadia Berthouze, UCL-CS
UCL Contact: Steve Marchant (Visitors from outside UCL please email in advance).
Date/Time: 10 Feb 16, 17:00 - 18:00
Venue: Roberts106
Further Information:

A drinks reception will follow in Roberts Foyer

Please register here https://nadiaberthouzeinaugural.eventbrite.co.uk

Abstract

Emotions and affective states more generally play an important role in people’s life, including when they interact with increasingly pervasive technology. Yet, for a long time, technology has failed to take them into account. Nadia’s research aims to design technology that is capable of recognising what we feel so as to provide us with relevant support. This talk will focus on one application domain: technology in chronic pain physical rehabilitation. Chronic pain brings with it many affective states in addition to frustration or boredom at engaging in repetitive exercises.

Those include low self-esteem for the new body we have to accept, fear and anxiety of injuring oneself, and low perceived self-efficacy modulated by attention to pain. Whilst gamification has been found to mitigate the more boring aspects of physical rehabilitation, other affective states are still mostly overlooked resulting in low adherence to the therapy program and low transfer to everyday functional capabilities. In this talk, Nadia will present her investigations into the affective barriers to physical rehabilitation in chronic pain and the needs that technology should address to be effective. Nadia’s main goal is to help people learn to self-manage their condition with a more positive perception of their body and capabilities.

Prof Nadia Berthouze

Nadia leads the Affective Computing and Interaction group within the UCL Interaction Centre. She pioneered the study of body movement and touch behaviour as modalities for affective automatic recognition and modulation in technology-mediated scenarios (games, health sector). Her work has gone beyond acted emotions by investigating naturalistic affective expressions such as laughter and pain. In the context of full-body game design, she has shown how body movement can be used as a way to steer the experience of the player.

She has proposed a new conceptual framework for designing physical rehabilitation technology in chronic pain that takes into account psychological progress and not just physical improvement. This has led to the implementation of a novel wearable device that received various awards. She has been invited to write chapters for prestigious handbooks (Oxford Handbooks, APA Psychology series), to give a TEDxStMartin talk and being a keynote speaker for various academic and industry-led conferences. She has been PI and Co-I in various UK, EU and Japan funded projects. She is part of the EU- UBI-HEALTH Network that sets roadmaps for ubiquitous health technology.