Lijun Yin and the Face of the Future
From: Binghamton University - 03/01/2011
By: Rachel Coker 

Binghamton University professor Lijun Yin is researching ways to extend the
human-computer interface beyond the keyboard and mouse. "Our research in
computer graphics and computer vision tries to make using computers easier,"
Yin says. He has led the development of methods for submitting data to a
computer based on where the user is looking and through gestures and speech
patterns. Yin's next goal is to develop a computer that can recognize a
user's emotional state, and he is working with Binghamton psychologist Peter
Gerhardstein to study how the technology could help children with autism. A
common symptom associated with autism is difficulty in interpreting other's
emotions, and a common therapeutic technique is to use photographs to teach
children when others are showing emotions such as happiness or sadness. Yin's
research could lead to three-dimensional avatars that can display a range of
emotions, including representations of the child's family that could aid the
therapeutic process. "We want not only to create a virtual-person model, we
want to understand a real person's emotions and feelings," says Yin. The
researchers also are developing algorithms that can identify when people are
in pain or lying based only on a photograph. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.binghamton.edu/inside/index.php/inside/story/lijun-yin-and-the-face-of-the-future

Links:
Lijun Yin
http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~lijun/
http://www2.binghamton.edu/watson/programs/academic-departments/computer-science/people/lijun.html

Peter Gerhardstein
http://www2.binghamton.edu/psychology/people/faculty/peter-gerhardstein.html