Browsing by Author "Leon, Enrique"
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Item Affect-aware behaviour modelling and control inside an intelligent environment(2010-10) Leon, Enrique; Clarke, Graham; Callaghan, Victor; Doctor, Faiyaz; Tecnalia Research & InnovationThe evidence suggests that human actions are supported by emotional elements that complement logic inference in our decision-making processes. In this paper an exploratory study is presented providing initial evidence of the positive effects of emotional information on the ability of intelligent agents to create better models of user actions inside smart-homes. Preliminary results suggest that an agent incorporating valence-based emotional data into its input array can model user behaviour in a more accurate way than agents using no emotion-based data or raw data based on physiological changes.Item Affective brain-computer interfaces: Psychophysiological markers of emotion in healthy persons and in persons with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(2009) Nijboer, Femke; Carmien, Stefan P.; Leon, Enrique; Morin, Fabrice O.; Koene, Randal A.; Hoffmann, Ulrich; Tecnalia Research & InnovationAffective Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) are systems that measure signals from the peripheral and central nervous system, extract features related to affective states of the user, and use these features to adapt human-computer interaction (HCI). Affective BCIs provide new perspectives on the applicability of BCIs. Affective BCIs may serve as assessment tools and adaptive systems for HCI for the general population and may prove to be especially interesting for people with severe motor impairment. In this context, affective BCIs will enable simultaneous expression of affect and content, thus providing more quality of life for the patient and the caregiver. In the present paper, we will present psychophysiological markers for affective BCIs, and discuss their usability in the day to day life of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).Item Computer-mediated emotional regulation: Detection of emotional changes using non-parametric cumulative sum(2010) Leon, Enrique; Montalban, Iraitz; Schlatter, Sarah; Dorronsoro, Iñigo; Tecnalia Research & InnovationIt has been demonstrated that negative emotions have adverse effects on the immune system of a person. This contributes to increased morbidity and mortality in the elderly population and has a direct impact on quality of life. Positive emotions on the other hand may not only undo the harmful effects of negative emotions but also protect against certain diseases. Hence the use of technology to facilitate emotional regulation that reduces negative emotions may be a good way to promote self-care and support well-being. In this paper we present the early design stages of an emotion detection system that aims to support remote support and self-regulation in situations of intense emotional distress. We provide evidence of the suitability of non-parametric cumulative sum (CUSUM) to indentify emotional changes from neutral to non-neutral and vice versa in real time.Item Design of affect-aware systems for the study of well-being(2011) Leon, Enrique; Dorronsoro, Iñigo; Barralon, Pierre; Gelderblom, Gert Jan; Soede, Mathijs; Adriaens, Leon; Miesenberger, Klaus; Tecnalia Research & Innovation; Medical TechnologiesCurrent demographic evidence indicates that contemporary Europeans live longer than ever before. This does not necessarily mean they live healthier and in fact there is a direct relationship between aging and disability, such that as the population gets older, the number of people with disability increases. This means that the elderly will represent the largest group of people with disabilities in the coming years. Thus, perhaps just as important as life expectancy is the quality of life of elderly people since it is this element that most affects individuals as well as their families and friends. In this paper we propose the combination of smart environments and affective wearables to support physical and mental well-being. We show experimental results that demonstrate that it is possible to perform assessment similar to the one provided by the Daily Reconstruction Method (DRM), a popular questionnaire-based instrument to estimate well-being, without the need of repeated human intervention. Main content. We describe the concept of affect-aware well-being monitoring which integrates elements of context-aware behaviour modelling and psyschophysiology to offer unobtrusive, continuous insight into emotional elements of daily life that influence well-being in the lives of elderly people. We use this approach to outline an automated implementation of the DRM. Results. Results from experimental sessions carried out in a Smart home called the iSpace involving a male person wearing an affective wearable called the XVest, demonstrated a higher number of valenced-emotional changes as the day progressed which was related to the activity of the person. Conclusion. We show that it is feasible to assess the core emotional elements of well-being in ways that do not require the use of questionnaires and enable continuous, unobtrusive analysis with little disturbance of daily life activities. This is achieved by the inclusion of emotional information into the control and decision mechanism of pervasive systems.Item Picking your party online-An investigation of Ireland's first online voting advice application(2009) Wall, Matthew; Sudulich, Maria Laura; Costello, Rory; Leon, Enrique; Tecnalia Research & InnovationOnline voting advice applications (VAAs), which help voters to decide in elections, have become commonplace in many European countries. However, their use and reliability is under-researched. This paper analyses the data generated by a VAA deployed in the run-up to the May 2007 general election in Ireland. The website was designed to allow users to compare their own placement on a number of policy dimensions with those of the main parties competing in the election. We compare the users of the website to the population in terms of their overall demographic characteristics and policy preferences, and examine the extent to which the advice issued by the website corresponded to users' stated voting intentions. The findings indicate that the VAA attracted users that were not representative of the wider population. Furthermore, we find that the supporters of the two main centre-right parties in Ireland (Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael) were less likely to be correctly identified by the application than supporters of the other parties. While VAAs offer the potential to improve the quality of democratic participation, the findings reported here also highlight a number of important challenges.Item Prospect of smart home-based detection of subclinical depressive disorders(IEEE, 2011) Leon, Enrique; Montejo, Manuel; Dorronsoro, Iñigo; Tecnalia Research & Innovation; SGAging is associated with changing physical, social, emotional, and financial circumstances that are often new to the elder. The affective distress that stems from coping with them could play a negative effect on the health of seniors and lead to severe cases of depression, an emotional disorder that could lead to fatal consequences. The combination of novel methods of ambulatory detection of emotional states, body area networks providing information from numerous bodily parameters, and sophisticated pervasive technologies offers new possibilities in the detection of and intervention in cases of subclinical depression. In this paper we present the technical aspects and rationale behind systems that can use emotional valence monitoring to quantify prolonged emotional negativity and identify the activities associated with such negativity. We argue that this as a suitable mechanism to facilitate ambient-mediated self-regulation and remote peer-support.