Neo-Noumena
“Neo-Noumena” is a novel communicative neuroresponsive system that uses brain-computer interfacing (BCI), augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to read one’s emotional states to dynamically represent them to others through head-mounted displays. Effectively communicating one’s emotion is notoriously difficult, a fact that most people, especially when living together, can probably easily agree with. Through Neo-Noumena, we explore the potential for technology to widen our expressive bandwidth to communicate emotion more deeply.
Through an in-the-wild study in which volunteers wore the system for several days, we found that participants used the system to talk about how they feel. They also applauded that the system allowed them to understand their partners emotional experiences better, enabling to respond more appropriately. Furthermore, we found that measures of emotional competence demonstrated a statistically significant increase in the participants’ ability to interpersonally regulate emotion
Through Neo-Noumena, we show how to design interactive technology to help people be more “in tune” with their emotions as well as understand and respond to other’s feelings better. This can be useful for anybody who ever found it difficult to express how they felt; one interesting avenue for future work could be investigations with people on the autism spectrum. We see a future where our ability to communicate emotion is augmented beyond traditional experience.
Publication
Semertzidis, N., Scary, M., Andres, J., Dwivedi, B., Kulwe, Y., Zambetta, F., Mueller, F. Neo-Noumena: Augmenting Emotion Communication. CHI 2020. Long paper. ACM. Video. Talk video.