We want to create technologies to help those among us who are less able by giving them the ability to control their own environment, and communicate effectively.

Below are examples of research projects that GVU faculty and students are currently working on:

Mobile Technologies for the Urban Homeless
Atlanta CRM is a system that helps case workers communicate with their homeless clients. It provides a simple interface to create, schedule, and manage messages sent to client's mobile phones. In turn, the homeless can leave voice messages or send text messages to their case manager to help keep them in touch with the resources they need as they go about their day.
Pixi Lab

Tag Talker
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is communication for those with impairments in verbal and written communication. Tag Talker is AAC software that uses tags to store, retrieve and organize phrases that can be used for communication. Most AAC software uses a pseudo-hierarchy of menus and pages that can be a challenge to develop and maintain. With hierarchical classification, users face difficult decisions when determining the one “correct” location to store a new phrase. With Tag Talker, to store a new phrase the user simply assigns one or more tags to a phrase and they’re done. To locate the phrase, the user can browse phrases by their associated tags or use a simple search feature.
Interactive Media Technology Center

The Effect of Mental Model Quality on Older Adults
This demo will present data from a research study investigating how the strength of a mental model can affect appropriate and inappropriate dependence on an automated system.
Human Factors Aging Lab

The Role of Workload and Age in Human-Automation Interaction
Automation is “a device or system that performs a function previously performed by a human.” Although automation originated in military and aerospace applications, automated systems have become common in many every situations, such as in-vehicle GPS navigation devices or automatic vehicle braking systems to prevent pedestrian and rear-end collisions (e.g., Volvo). However, it currently is not clear whether people use automated systems the same way when they are in high workload states compared to low workload states. Further, it is unclear whether older and younger adults use automation differently, and whether workload influences them in the same way. As there are many automated systems that may be particularly beneficial to older adults, such as automated blood pressure cuffs of blood glucose meters, examining this segment of the population is also critical. Therefore, this study systematically manipulated workload and compared younger and older adults’ use of an imperfect automated system.
Human Factors Aging Lab

Knowledge Engineering in an Orange Grove
The knowledge engineering process was applied to mowing in a grove setting to understand what tractor operators knew and used to do their jobs successfully.
Human Factors Aging Lab

Health Numeracy and Older Adults
Poster highlighting pilot data illustrating the types of mistakes that older adults make when reading numeric health information.
Human Factors Aging Lab

Social Characteristics of a Virtual Agent
People interact with technology that displays minimal personality cues (e.g., facial expression) much as it was another person (Nass et al., 1995). The ways in which humans recognize emotion is an important consideration in the design of a robot or virtual agent; otherwise, misinterpretation of expressions and failures of communication can occur (Bartneck, 2001). In particular, older adults’ interactions with such agents are important to consider as assistive agents could be especially beneficial for independent living. Many factors have been found to influence the patterns of how people recognize emotive facial expressions displayed by an agent including age of the person, intensity of agent’s expression, emotion type, character type displaying the emotion, and motion vs. static information.
Human Factors Aging Lab

Robotics to Assist Older Adults at Home
There is a growing need in society to enable older adults to remain in an independent living environment. In a joined effort between the Human Factors and Aging Lab and the Healthcare Robotics Lab, human-robot interaction and technology acceptance will be assessed using a PR2 (Personal Robot 2). The purpose of this research is to: a) identify the needs of older adults and professional caregivers that might be accommodated by the robot; b) determine the factors that will lead to acceptance of such robotic assistance (and potential barriers to acceptance); and c) assess the human-robot interaction challenges that arise in the home environment.
Human Factors Aging Lab

CREATE: Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement
The goals of CREATE are to advance scientific understanding of aging as related to human-system interactions and to disseminate our research findings with scientists, businesses, and consumers. Our research focuses on the design of advanced technologies, technology acceptance, and collaborative industry projects. CREATE is a collaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology, Florida State University and the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine.
Human Factors Aging Lab

Aware Home Research Initiative Overview
Is it possible to create a home environment that is aware of its occupants’ whereabouts and activities? If we build such a home, how can it provide services to its residents that enhance their quality of life or help them to maintain independence as they age? The Aware Home Research Initiative (AHRI) is an interdisciplinary research endeavor at Georgia Tech aimed at addressing the fundamental technical, design, and social challenges presented by such questions. The AHRI is devoted to the multidisciplinary exploration of emerging technologies and services based in the home. With specific expertise in health, education, entertainment and usable security, we are able to apply our research to problems of significant social and economic impact.
Aware Home Research Initiative

Enabling Clinical Decisions through Home Monitoring and Health Information Technology
As home healthcare, particularly for older adults, seems destined to gain in importance over the next few decades, home monitoring and health IT will play an important role in providing more pertinent information to clinicians and caregivers. In this research project, we are devising a framework for delivery of data from a variety of sensing technologies within the home to the personal/electronic health record for ease of sharing with clinicians. Our framework utilizes open-source systems to deliver potentially important everyday activity and vitals data to clinicians at the Wesley Woods Center on Emory University Campus. In order to demonstrate the framework, we are building a system including: sensors connected through a Global Sensor Network server, served up to Salud! (a GT personal reporting and analysis tool), data is transferred through a NHIN Health IT/Exchange infrastructure, and processed in Google App Engine/Cloud, then pertinent data delivered to a clinician through an Android phone. The project includes setting up a master unit at Wesley Woods Senior Living and, with future funding, plans to enhance and duplicate this system in actual residences with a connection to Emory/WW/Atlanta VA(VAMC) research.
Aware Home Research Initiative

The Accessible Aquarium Project
This is a collaborative project working to make dynamic exhibits at aquariums, museums, and zoos more accessible to visitors with vision loss. We track the fish using computer vision techniques, then use visual effects, music, speech, and non-speech audio to interpret and convey what is happening in the tank.
Sonification Lab

Mobile Music Touch (MMT)
The loss of functionality of the hands can severely interrupt a person's life, and hand rehabilitation can be a long, arduous process. In fact, many patients find certain traditional therapy exercises, such as squeezing an object for several hours a day, or other simple strengthening exercises, monotonous and un-motivating. Thus we propose the Mobile Music Touch (MMT) system as an engaging, pervasive hand rehabilitation aid. MMT consists of a wireless tactile glove, with a vibration motor for each finger, and a lightweight computing device such as an MP3 player or a smart phone. When instrumental music is played (such as piano or saxophone), the tactile glove vibrates the fingers to indicate which fingers play which notes. Thus with MMT, users can hear a song and feel it playing on their hands. The MMT system can augment the stimulation of the afferent (sensory) nerves, motivate patients to use their hands in a fun way, and teach them the enjoyable and relaxing skill of playing an instrument, which may further motivate long term hand use.
Contextual Computing Group

SmartSign
This project involves the development and evaluation of a mobile content delivery system. Using small, unplanned moments throughout the day, we will endeavor to increase participants’ knowledge of American Sign Language vocabulary. This project also involves efforts assess the efficacy of content delivery to mobile phones and traditional, desktop-based
Contextual Computing Group

CopyCat
This project involves the design and evaluation of an interactive computer game that allows deaf children to practice their American Sign Language skills. The game includes an automatic sign language recognition component utilizing computer vision and wireless accelerometers. The project is a collaboration with Dr. Harley Hamilton at the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf.
Contextual Computing Group

Dancing in the Streets
Dancing in the Streets is a version of Dance Dance Revolution that runs on a cellular phone - instead of pressing buttons on the phone to play the game, it employs Bluetooth accelerometers placed on the feet. The user can then dance along with the songs similar to how it is played on the traditional Wii game system, providing some form of exercise. This project seeks to determine if this is an engaging way to have students get some type of physical activity during the day.
Contextual Computing Group

Mobile Text Entry and Automatic Whiteout
By analyzing features of users' typing, Automatic Whiteout++ detects and corrects up to 32.37% of the errors made by typists while using a mini-QWERTY (RIM Blackberry style) keyboard. The system targets "off-by-one" errors where the user accidentally presses a key adjacent to the one intended. Using a database of typing from longitudinal tests on two different keyboards in a variety of contexts, we show that the system generalizes well across users, model of keyboard, user expertise, and keyboard visibility conditions. Since a goal of Automatic Whiteout++ is to embed it in the firmware of mini-QWERTY keyboards, it does not rely on a dictionary. This feature enables the system to correct errors mid-word instead of applying a correction after the word has been typed. Though we do not use a dictionary, we do examine the effect of varying levels of language context in the system's ability to detect and correct erroneous key presses.
Contextual Computing Group

Helping Hands
A major challenge for some of the 20 million Americans with visual impairments is identifying the difference between objects of similar size and shape. Individuals with several visual impairments rely on a combination of other senses for object recognition, resulting in a prolonged identification process prone to errors. This research explores the use of a wearable apparatus that audibly identifies the labeled objects it comes in contact with using radio frequency ID (RFID).
Health Systems Institute

Aware Chair
The Aware Chair is an intelligent, context-aware communication, environmental control, and navigation system that learns its users’ preferences and habits in order to predict selections. The goal of the Aware Chair research is to make brain signal control faster, easier, and more accurate for people with severe physical disabilities. A new heads-up display based on visual brain signals is the basis of our latest study.
Brain Lab

BrainBrowser - Neural Internet
Access to the internet can be life-changing for people with severe disabilities. The BrainBrowser allows neural control of web surfing, including following hyperlinks and web controls.
Brain Lab

BrainSign - Brain Gesture Recognition
This new study is exploring composite patterns of brain signals in order to determine if gesture languages such as American Sign Language can be recognized with fMRI and EEG brain imaging.
Brain Lab

Neural Plasticity for Stroke Rehabilitation
A collaboration with GT Applied Physiology and BioEngineering is exploring the possibilities of incorporating direct brain interfaces with rehabilitation robots to provide treatment options for people with severe paralysis resulting from strokes.
Brain Lab

Functional Near Infrared Imaging for Communication
The Kokoro Gatari is a simple, portable brain imaging device based on fNIR technology. It can allow people with very severe physical disabilities, such as locked-in syndrome, to communicate. We are currently conducting a large study with ALS patients to determine the effectiveness of this device.
Brain Lab

BrainMusic
This NSF-funded collaboration between the BrainLab and the Music Department is studying brain signals that are generated during music improvisation, to compare it to playing pre-composed music. This project hopes to discover processes in the brain related to music.
Brain Lab

ClockReader
Early detection of cognitive impairment can prevent or delay the progress of cognitive dysfunction. In the field of neurology, the Clock Drawing Test (CDT) is one of the most popular instruments for detecting cognitive impairment in the elderly. One purpose of the ClockReader System is to enable patients to take the Clock Drawing Test without the presence of a human evaluator. The system consists of three main components: data collection, sketch recognition, and data analysis. First, the system should record and recognize a patient’s freehand drawing and collect the data. Then, based on the scoring criteria, the system should automatically analyze the drawing and report the score. There are two major benefits of a computerized screening test. With electronic records, doctors can easily follow the progress of a patient’s condition for disease diagnosis and treatment. Patients can save time and money by decreasing the frequency of clinical visits.
ACME Lab

Advanced Auditory Menus
Many electronic devices, from desktop computers to mobile phones to DVD players, can be thought of as a menu of functions. These functions can be accessible to a blind user if the menus are spoken aloud. However, this is extremely inefficient, so we have been enhancing auditory menus with sophisticated text-to-speech, spearcons, spindex, and other audio extensions.
Sonification Lab

Auditory Graphics
The graphs and figures that are so prevalent in math and science education make those topics largely inaccessible to blind students. We are working on auditory graphs that can represent equations and data to those who cannot see a visual graph. We have a whole ecosystem of software and hardware solutions, both desktop and mobile, to help in this space. This project is in collaboration with the Georgia Academy for the Blind and the Center for the Visually Impaired of Atlanta.
Sonification Lab

Driving after a Traumatic Brain Injury
Millions of Americans suffer traumatic brain injuries each year, and the majority of them return to driving at some point following their recovery. However, the residual effects of TBIs can affect perception, cognition, emotion, and motor abilities. In collaboration with the Shepherd Center we are developing software that can help improve the attention and abilities of drivers post-TBI. The system could help all kinds of drivers who may have attention lapses, cognitive processing issues, or other issues that impact driving (e.g., novice drivers, aging adults, "stressed" drivers).
Sonification Lab

Bone Conduction Audio
Most sound comes through our ears. However, it is also possible to pass vibrations through the bones of the head, and bypass much of the normal hearing pathway. This is called bone conduction audio, and can be used in situations where the ears need to be plugged, or where you need to leave the ears open to hear ambient sounds. We are studying the psychoacoustics as well as the applied aspects of bone conduction audio.
Sonification Lab