Rosalind Wright Picard (born 1962)[1] is an American scholar and inventor who is Grover M. Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at MIT, founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab, and co-founder of the startups Affectiva[2] and Empatica.[3]
She has received many recognitions for her research and inventions. In 2005, she was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for contributions to image and video analysis and affective computing.[4] In 2019 she received one of the highest professional honors accorded an engineer, election to the National Academy of Engineering for her contributions on affective computing and wearable computing.[5] In 2021 she was recognized as a Fellow of the ACM for contributions to physiological signal sensing for individual health and wellbeing.[6] In 2021 she was elected to the National Academy of Inventors,[7] which recognizes outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. In 2022 she was awarded the International Lombardy Prize for Computer Science Research,[8] which carries a €1 million award, which she donated to support digital health and neurology research to help save the lives of people with epilepsy and children susceptible to sudden infant death syndrome.[9][10][11]
Picard is credited with starting the branch of computer science known as affective computing[12][13] with her 1997 book of the same name. This book described the importance of emotion in intelligence, the vital role human emotion communication has to relationships between people, and the possible effects of emotion recognition by robots and wearable computers.[14] Her work in this field has led to an expansion into autism research and developing devices that could help humans recognize nuances in human emotions.[15]
Picard has been a member of the faculty at the MIT Media Laboratory since 1991, with tenure since 1998 and a full professorship since 2005.[18][19] Picard is a researcher in the field of affective computing and the founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab. The Affective Computing Research Group develops tools, techniques, and devices for sensing, interpreting, and processing emotion signals that drive state-of-the-art systems that respond intelligently to human emotional states.[20] Applications of their research include improved tutoring systems and assistive technology for use in addressing the verbal communications difficulties experienced by individuals with autism.[18][21]
Picard was the founding Faculty Chair of the MIT MindHandHeart Initiative, a "coalition of students, faculty, and staff [...] working collaboratively and strategically to strengthen the fabric of [the] MIT community."[22]
Affective computing
As she began building systems to objectively measure emotion in people, including wearable and computer vision and audition technologies, she described a need for more research on an area of computing inspired by the rational roles emotion plays in the human brain. She wrote a book envisioning and describing this research, including laying out how to give skills of emotional intelligence to machines, titling the book "Affective Computing." MIT's press release for Picard's book states, "According to Rosalind Picard, if we want computers to be genuinely intelligent and to interact naturally with us, we must give computers the ability to recognize, understand, even to have and express emotions".[14]
Picard explains the need to monitor emotional cues and how this is present with humans when she states:
"Whatever his strategy, the good teacher detects important affective cues from the student and responds differently because of them. For example, the teacher might leave subtle hints or clues for the student to discover, thereby preserving the learner's sense of self-propelled discovery. Whether the subject matter involves deliberate emotional expression as is the case with music, or is a "non-emotional" topic such as science, the teacher that attends to a student's interest, pleasure, and distress is perceived as more effective than the teacher that proceeds callously. The best teachers know that frustration usually precedes quitting, and know how to redirect or motivate the pupil at such times. They get to know their student, including how much distress that student can withstand before learning breaks down."[23]
But such emotional cues are not part of robotic intelligence.[citation needed]
In order to portray how such a recognition would alter interactions with robots, Picard gave an example situation:
Imagine your robot entering the kitchen as you prepare breakfast for guests. The robot looks happy to see you and greets you with a cheery "Good morning." You mumble something it does not understand. It notices your face, vocal tone, smoke above the stove, and your slamming of a pot into the sink, and infers that you do not appear to be having a good morning. Immediately, it adjusts its internal state to "subdued", which has the effect of lowering its vocal pitch and amplitude settings, eliminating cheery behavioral displays, and suppressing unnecessary conversation. Suppose you exclaim, "Ow!!" yanking your hand from the hot stove, rushing to run your fingers under cold water, adding "I can't believe I ruined the sauce." While the robot's speech recognition may not have high confidence that it accurately recognized all of your words, its assessment of your affect and actions indicates a high probability that you are upset and maybe hurt.[24]
In such a situation, it is necessary for the robots to understand the emotional aspects of humans in order to better serve their intended purpose.
Her work has influenced many fields beyond computer science, ranging from video games[25] to law.[26] One critic, Aaron Sloman, described the book as having a "bold vision" that will inspire some and irritate others.[27] Other critics emphasize the importance behind the work as it establishes an important framework for the field as a whole.[28] Picard responded to Sloman's review by saying, "I don't think the review captures the flavor of the book. However, he does raise interesting points, as well as potential misunderstandings, both of which I am grateful for the opportunity to comment on".[29]
In 2009, Picard co-founded Affectiva, along with Rana el Kaliouby, and became the company's chief scientist for the next four years. The company was based on technologies the two began developing at the Affective Computing Research Group within the MIT Media Lab.[2][30] In April 2014, Picard co-founded Empatica, Inc, a business creating wearable sensors and analytics to help people understand and communicate physiological changes involved in emotion. Her team showed that physiological changes in the emotion system could help identify seizures that might be life-threatening.[31]
Autism research
Besides researching robotic intelligence, Picard has performed research in the field of autism. Her team created an "emotional-social intelligence prosthesis" (ESP), that allowed a person diagnosed with autism to monitor their own facial reactions in order to educate them on social cues in others.[15] This device had a 65% accuracy rate for reading one of eight emotional states from an individual's facial expressions and head movements.[32] She revealed parts of this technology at the 11th Annual International Symposium on Wearable Computers.[33]
Emotion research
Picard has put forward theories to improve the research of emotions through the implementation of new technologies with a focus to gather emotional information outside of a lab setting. With devices that can measure heart-rate, electrodermal activity, and other physiological changes, and that are non-obtrusive and simple to wear (Picard uses an example of the iCalm sensor) emotional responses can be more accurately observed in a real life. She also argues against nomothetic research over idiographic research when it comes to studying emotions claiming that an individualized approach would be more fruitful than just throwing out data when a group correlation is not found. In this way, data from individuals could still be kept and analyzed and then paired (not averaged) with data clusters that were similar.[34]
Religion and science
Picard was raised an atheist, but converted to Christianity as a young adult.[35] She is a practicing Christian[36] and does not believe there is a separation of the "material body and immaterial spirit" but that there is "something else that we haven't discovered yet", and believes "that scientists cannot assume that nothing exists beyond what they can measure".[35] She believes it likely that there is "still something more" to life, beyond what we have discovered, and sees DNA as too complex to have originated through "purely random processes".[35] To her, the complexity of life shows "the mark of intervention", and "a much greater mind, a much greater scientist, a much greater engineer behind who we are".[35] She sees her religious beliefs as playing a role in her work in affective computing,[37] and said that when "Digging into the models of how the emotions work, I find I feel even greater awe and appreciation for the way we are made, and therefore for the Maker that has brought this about."[37]
Picard is one of the signatories of the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, a petition which states that: We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.[38] Although her view about the complexity of DNA "sounds similar to the intelligent design debate", reporter Mirko Petricevic writes, "Picard has some reservations about intelligent design, saying it isn't being sufficiently challenged by Christians and other people of faith".[35] She argues that the media has created a false dilemma by dividing everyone into two groups, supporters of intelligent design or evolution. "To simply put most of us in one camp or the other does the whole state of knowledge a huge disservice."[35]
NeurIPS 2024 conference
At the NeurIPS 2024 conference, a slide in Picard's keynote address drew criticism from a Chinese attendee due to Picard describing an example of improper use of AI by a Chinese university student, while her examples on other slides did not mention nationality.[39] The slide also made the general remark that "Most Chinese who I know are honest and morally upright."[39] Furong Huang, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, remarked on social media that Picard's comments were "not just inappropriate but also profoundly disheartening".[39] Picard issued a public apology, stating that mentioning nationality was unnecessary and caused "unintended negative associations" that she deeply regretted.[40]
Awards
Georgia Engineering Foundation Fellowship(s) 1980, '81, '82, '83
Society of Women Engineers: "The Outstanding Woman Engineering Student" 1981, '82, '83, '84
National Science Foundation Fellow 1984
AT&T Bell Laboratories "One Year On Campus" Fellow 1984
Georgia Institute of Technology Department of Electrical Engineering Faculty Award 1984
Voted Omicron Delta Kappa, Georgia Tech and Southeast U. S. "Leader of the Year" 1984
AAUW "The Outstanding Georgia Institute of Technology Woman Graduate" 1984
IAPR Pattern Recognition Society Best Paper Prize (with Tom Minka) 1991
GA Tech College of Engineering "Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni Award" 1995
NEC Career Development Chair in Computers and Communications 1992, '96
Assoc. of American Publishers, Inc. Computer Science Book Award, (Hon. Mention) 1997
Senior Member of IEEE 2000
ICALT 2001 Best Theory Paper Prize (with Rob Reilly and Barry Kort) 2001
Picard, Rosalind W. (1997). Affective Computing. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN9780262161701.
J. Tao, T. Tan, and R. W. Picard (Eds.), Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction 2005, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3784, 2005. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg 2005.
A. Paiva, R. Prada, and R. W. Picard (Eds.), Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction 2007, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4738, 2007. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg 2007.
Articles
T. P. Minka and R.W. Picard (1997), "Interactive Learning Using a 'Society of Models,'" Pattern Recognition, Volume 30, No. 4, pp.565–581, 1997. (Winner of 1997 Pattern Recognition Society Award)
R. W. Picard, E. Vyzas & J. Healey, (2001), "Toward machine emotional intelligence: Analysis of affective physiological state," IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis & Machine Intelligence, (10), 1175-1191.
B. Kort, R. Reilly and R. W. Picard (2001), "An Affective Model of Interplay Between Emotions and Learning: Reengineering educational Pedagogy-Building a Learning Companion," In Proceedings of International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2001), August 2001, Madison, WI. (Winner of Best Paper Prize.)[45]
J. Healey and R. W. Picard (2005), "Detecting Stress During Real-World Driving Tasks Using Physiological Sensors," IEEE Trans. on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Volume 6, No. 2, June 2005, pp.156–166. (Voted "Top 10 best papers of the decade 2000-2009" for the IEEE T. on Intelligent Transportation Systems)
M. E. Hoque, M. Courgeon, J.-C. Martin, B. Mutlu, R. W. Picard, "MACH: My Automated Conversation coacH", 15th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp), 8–12 September 2013. (Winner of Best Ubiquitous Computing Paper Award)
Rosalind W. Picard, Matteo Migliorini, Chiara Caborni, Francesco Onorati, Giulia Regalia, Daniel Friedman, and Orrin Devinsky. "Wrist sensor reveals sympathetic hyperactivity and hypoventilation before probable SUDEP." Neurology 89, no. 6 (2017): 633-635.
"Method and Apparatus for Relating and Combining Multiple Images of the Same Scene or Object(s)" U.S. patent 5,706,416. Issued January 6, 1998. (With Steve Mann.)
"System and Method for Determining a Workload Level of a Driver" U.S. patent 7,428,449. Issued Sep 23, 2008 (with Fehr, Gardner and Hansman).
"Washable wearable biosensor" U.S. patent 8,140,143. Issued Mar 20, 2012 (with Williams, Fletcher, Eydgahi, Poh, Wilder-Smith, Kim, Dobson, Lee).
"Methods and apparatus for Monitoring Patients and Delivering Therapeutic Stimuli" U.S. patent 8,655,441. Issued Feb 18, 2014 (with Fletcher, Eydgani and Williams).
"Video recommendation based on affect" U.S. patent 9,106,958. Issued Aug 11, 2015 (with Kaliouby, Bahgat, Sadowsky and Wilder-Smith).
"Using affect within a gaming context" U.S. patent 9,247,903. Issued February 2, 2016 (with Bender, Kaliouby, Picard, Sadowsky, Turcot, Wilder-Smith).
"Methods and Apparatus for Conversation Coach" U.S. patent 9,691,296. Issued Jun 27, 2017 (with Hoque).
"Methods and apparatus for physiological measurement using color band photoplethysmographic sensor" U.S. patent 10,028,669. Issued Jul 24, 2018 (with Gontarek and McDuff).
↑ Kleine-Cosack, Christian (October 2006). "Recognition and Simulation of Emotions"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on May 28, 2008. Retrieved May 13, 2008. The introduction of emotion to computer science was done by Pickard (sic) who created the field of affective computing.
↑ Diamond, David (December 2003). "The Love Machine; Building computers that care". Wired. Archived from the original on May 18, 2008. Retrieved May 13, 2008. Rosalind Picard, a genial MIT professor, is the field's godmother; her 1997 book, Affective Computing, triggered an explosion of interest in the emotional side of computers and their users.
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