1,720,983 research outputs found
Automated Analysis of Synchronization in Human Full-body Expressive Movement
No full textThe research presented in this thesis is focused on the creation of computational models for the study of human full-body movement in order to investigate human behavior and non-verbal communication. In particular, the research concerns the analysis of synchronization of expressive movements and gestures. Synchronization can be computed both on a single user (intra-personal), e.g., to measure the degree of coordination between the joints’ velocities of a dancer, and on multiple users (inter-personal), e.g., to detect the level of coordination between multiple users in a group. The thesis, through a set of experiments and results, contributes to the investigation of both intra-personal and inter-personal synchronization applied to support the study of movement expressivity, and improve the state-of-art of the available methods by presenting a new algorithm to perform the analysis of synchronization
A system to support non-IT researchers in the automated analysis of human movement
No full textAnalysis of human movement data is a core topic of many research studies in human-human and human-computer interaction. Whereas, on the one side, automated movement analysis is often based on the application of sophisticated computer science techniques (e.g., motion tracking from video recordings), on the other side the interdisciplinary nature of research in this area requires the availability of tools that can be used by researchers who may not have an advanced computer science expertise. This paper presents a system enabling users, who are not necessarily computer scientists, to perform motion tracking from a dataset of video recordings. The system – consisting of a set of (freely downloadable) tools accessible by means of user friendly graphical interfaces – was designed, developed, and tested in the context of a project for automated analysis of entrainment in ensemble music performance, following the needs and requirements of musicologists and psychologists
Designing a Multisensory Social Serious-Game for Primary School Mathematics Learning
No full textPsychophysical and developmental psychology evidence shows that children have a preferential sensory channel to learn specific concepts, highlighting the need of a multisensory approach to education. Despite such a potential for a positive impact, in education technology research multisensory learning has been often penalised and limited by design choices. In this work, we present the requirements and the design of an implementable prototype of serious-game aimed at teaching children a precise mathematical concept: Angles. The game is based on the interaction between different sensory modalities, in particular movement, vision, and sound
A serious games platform for validating sonification of human full-body movement qualities
No full textIn this paper we describe a serious games platfrom for validating sonification of human full-body movement qualities. This platform supports the design and development of serious games aiming at validating (i) our techniques to measure expressive movement qualities, and (ii) the mapping strategies to translate such qualities in the auditory domain, by means of interactive sonification and active music experience. The platform is a part of a more general framework developed in the context of the EU ICT H2020 DANCE "Dancing in the dark" Project n.645553 that aims at enabling the perception of nonverbal artistic whole-body experiences to visual impaired people
Limbs synchronisation as a measure of movement quality in karate
No full textWe present a method to compute a measure of karate movement quality from MoCap data. We start from well-known common assumptions: An expert athlete is able to perform movements characterized by stable and clean postures and stances, i.e., he is able to conclude the movements without hesitation, noisy small fluctuations or movement ripples. To explore this hypothesis, we collected a dataset of motion capture data of movements of five athletes while performing two different kata's for a total of 22 trials. The athletes have two distinct levels of skill and age: junior brown belt and senior black belt. For each trial, we compute the acceleration of the limbs (arms and legs) and carry out a multi-scale analysis to identify and extract relevant events. Such events correspond to maxima and minima of acceleration intensity (i.e. peaks of high acceleration or deceleration) that occur near the start and the end points of each basic movement segment in a session of kata. Significant events are then selected and an event-synchronisation approach is used to measure the amount of synchrony between the two arms and between the two legs. Results show that expert performers exhibit higher synchronisation with respect to beginners, resulting in more stable and clean movements perceived by observers
Enhancing children understanding of mathematics with multisensory technology
No full textRecent results from psychophysics and developmental psychology show that children do not integrate and use the same sensory modalities in the same way, but they rather have a preferential sensory channel to learn specific concepts. In schools, however, the visual channel is often the only one exploited for teaching, whereas the other channels are left to a marginal role. The weDRAW project, an ongoing European two-years project, explores the chance to create and evaluate new methodologies to teaching, grounded on multisensory technologies. In particular, the project targets a deeper understanding of arithmetic and geometry. A major novelty of such a new technology is that it is based on the renewed understanding of what communication between senses is and how it occurs during child development, that is, that specific sensory systems have specific roles for learning specific concepts. Neuroscientific prospectives suggest that it is possible to develop new teaching/learning channels, personalized for each student based on the child's sensory skills. This practice work consists of a demo simulating a set-up in a primary school, where children with any level of previous mathematical knowledge can try the technologies themselves. The demo includes full-body activities to "play" and "draw" arithmetical and geometrical concepts, such as playing a fraction using body rhythms and drawing shapes and symmetries
Designing multimodal interactive systems using EyesWeb XMI
No full textThis paper introduces the EyesWeb XMI platform (for eXtended Multimodal Interaction) as a tool for fast prototyping of multimodal systems, including interconnection of multiple smart devices, e.g., smartphones. EyesWeb is endowed with a visual programming language enabling users to compose modules into applications. Modules are collected in several libraries and include support of many input devices (e.g., video, audio, motion capture, accelerometers, and physiological sensors), output devices (e.g., video, audio, 2D and 3D graphics), and synchronized multimodal data processing. Specific libraries are devoted to real-time analysis of nonverbal expressive motor and social behavior. The EyesWeb platform encompasses further tools such EyesWeb Mobile supporting the development of customized Graphical User Interfaces for specific classes of users. The paper will review the EyesWeb platform and its components, starting from its historical origins, and with a particular focus on the Human-Computer Interaction aspects
Analysis of Intrapersonal Synchronization in Full-Body Movements Displaying Different Expressive Qualities
No full textIntrapersonal synchronization of limb movements is a relevant feature for assessing coordination of motoric behaviour. In this paper, we show that it can also distinguish between full-body movements performed with different expressive qualities, namely rigidity, fluidity, and impulsivity. For this purpose, we collected a dataset of movements performed by professional dancers and annotated the perceived movement qualities with the help of a group of experts in expressive movement analysis. We computed intrapersonal synchronization by applying the Event Synchronization algorithm to the time-series of the speed of arms and hands. Results show that movements performed with different qualities display a significantly different amount of intrapersonal synchronization: impulsive movements are the most synchronized, the fluid ones show the lowest values of synchronization, and the rigid ones lay in between
Designing multimodal interactive systems using EyesWeb XMI
No full textThis paper introduces the EyesWeb XMI platform (for eXtended Multimodal Interaction) as a tool for fast prototyping of multimodal systems, including interconnection of multiple smart devices, e.g., smartphones. EyesWeb is endowed with a visual programming language enabling users to compose modules into applications. Modules are collected in several libraries and include support of many input devices (e.g., video, audio, motion capture, accelerometers, and physiological sensors), output devices (e.g., video, audio, 2D and 3D graphics), and synchronized multimodal data processing. Specific libraries are devoted to real-time analysis of nonverbal expressive motor and social behavior. The EyesWeb platform encompasses further tools such EyesWeb Mobile supporting the development of customized Graphical User Interfaces for specific classes of users. The paper will review the EyesWeb platform and its components, starting from its historical origins, and with a particular focus on the Human-Computer Interaction aspects
- …
