Algorithms and Sensors for Sonification of Emotion: New Technology for ASD

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Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) "are characterized by social deficits and communication difficulties, stereotyped or repetitive behaviors and interests, sensory issues, and in some cases, cognitive delays"[wikipedia.org]. According to Health Canada, "International studies indicate that about one in every 150-160 children has autism" [hc-sc.gc.ca]. Reality Controls (Vancouver, BC) has a broad interest in interactive technologies that assist and enable people in a variety of situations, including assisting people with ASD. The Video and Motion Analysis (VMA) lab in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary has a track record of developing systems that assist athletes in acquiring and perfecting motor skills, by measuring an athletes motion and providing real-time assistive feedback in the form of sound (i.e. sonification). The goal of this project is to bring the technological knowledge on motion and sonification from the VMA lab to bear on challenges involving assistive technology for ASD being developed by Reality Controls. We will investigate several wearable sensors that have the potential to measure the wearer's emotional state, e.g., heart rate monitors and motion sensors. When the measurements are sonified in real-time, the wearer can hear their own emotional state as a sound pattern. Thus a patient with ASD wearing such a device can learn to hear an emotional state. If another person (real or simulated in a game environment) wears the sensor, and the ASD patient can hear the sound, the patient will hear the emotional state, potentially overcoming a communication challenge that many ASD patients face. Ultimately, we hope that such a system will enable ASD patients to first bridge this communication gap, and then use it to learn coping mechanism that they can apply in daily life. We anticipate that a successful project will lead to a product that embodies this emotion-to-sound process.