Robots to Help Children With Autism

Bandit the robot helps children understand social cues and emotional responses

An endearing little robot named Bandit may be the newest technology to help children with autism better understand social cues and emotional behavior.

Researchers at the Robotics Research Lab at University of Southern California have created studies for children with autism to interact and play with Bandit, a small human-like robot with movable eyebrows and mouth, and motion sensors that allow him to back away or move forward.

The designers hoped to create a balance between human and robot so that he is approachable and engaging without being too realistic or intimidating.

"In autism, there was already anecdotal evidence that children with autism often respond favorably to robots and show social behaviors they do not display with unfamiliar people," Maja Mataric, co-director of the Robotics Research Lab at USC, told ABCNews.com. "Some work had already been done with toy-like robots before we got involved in the research. We were specifically interested in using human-like child-sized robots which would serve as peers, not toys, in the interaction with children."

In initial pilot experiments with the robots, Mataric and colleagues found that children with autism exhibited unexpected social behaviors, including pointing, initiating play, imitating the robot and even showing empathy. 

"We were very encouraged by these responses and have been developing new robot capabilities to enrich the interaction," Mataric said.

"One of our successes is the development of software that can analyze the movement of the child interacting with the robot and determining, automatically, whether the child is having a positive, desirableinteraction or not," said David Feil-Sefer, a PhD student who has worked on all the autism studies with Mataric.

Mataric said she first became interested in using technology for developmental treatments when she realized that it could be used to fill the "care gap" in personalized medicine.

Many populations consist of individuals who need one-on-one personalized care, she said, but that care can require many hours per day, for years or even a lifetime.

"Bandit is more simplistic looking with obvious emotional expressions," said Dr. Stefani Hines, developmental and behavioral pediatrician with the Beaumont Health System's Center for Human Development in Michigan. "He's probably less intimidating than human beings for children with autism. We may be able to use him to fade into naturalistic settings."

About one percent of American children ages 3 to 17 have an autism spectrum disorder and it is the fastest-growing developmental disorder, according to the Autism Society.

"Researchers know that to help children with autism, they need to develop new, more effective interventions," said Debra Dunn, outreach director for the Center for Autism Research at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Some children with autism spectrum disorders have an affinity for technology and for machines and may be particularly engaged during this therapy."

Eye tracking research has shown that children with autism prefer looking at objects rather than human faces. They have difficulty understand facial expression and even sometimes recognizing a person's identity. But the lack of experience in reading faces could be contributed tot that difficulty in facial recognition, Dunn said.

Robot Named Bandit Helps Autistic Kids

But, Dunn warned that, in a world where children with autism tend to retreat into a world of objects, robots may not be the best solution.

"Being engaged while playing with a robot and gaining skills from using it are two different things, and research is needed to test the effectiveness of this and any new intervention," said Dunn.

Mataric and colleagues have already expanded Bandit's assistance beyond children with autism. Researchers said they plan to test Bandit out in other populations, including Alzheimer's patients, stroke survivors and in elderly people living alone.

"We are developing new capabilities for Bandit, such as more sophisticated imitation games, the abilities to positively influence people's behaviors including encouraging them to exercise and socialize (to mitigate isolation and depression), to maintain a healthy diet and to adhere to taking medications," Mataric said. "We are interested in putting Bandit in the playground to have it interact with many children and serve as a catalyst for bringing children with autism spectrum disorders and typically developing children together in a natural playful and educational setting."

Mind of a Killer: Psychopaths Reveal Selves With Words

 

A new Canadian study shows psychopaths telegraph their intentions with the words they use to describe their deeds

Is it likely that a potential psychopathic killer will telegraph his intentions in advance by the basic words he uses to describe his deeds? Possibly, according to new research involving 52 murderers now incarcerated in maximum security prisons in Canada.

In a ground-breaking study of 14 psychopaths and 38 other murderers who did not have major psychiatric disorders, researchers found telling clues that clearly distinguished the two groups -- simply the words they used in often-chilling interviews with clinical psychologist Michael Woodworth of the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. Previous work had determined that some of the men were psychopaths and the others were not, thus providing a chance to search for language differences between the two groups.

Psychopaths generally are unable to feel empathy or remorse, are egocentric and often abusive of others. They often appear healthy because they can fake the emotions others expect them to feel.

As they recalled the violent actions that landed them in prison, the participants in the study (all volunteers) saw their deeds, and their needs, in very different ways. Psychopaths were far more likely to say they committed the crime because of personal needs, like food and money, and they described their deeds in the past tense, suggesting it happened a long time ago and there was little that the perpetrator could do to prevent it. They seemed emotionally detached from the murder, and as might be expected, they showed no remorse.

They were obsessed with details, even recalling what they had eaten on the morning of the crime.

"The money was excellent and the little girls wanting to hang with me was even better," one psychopath said.

"I just turned around and looked at him and I just stabbed him and I said, 'None of your f--- business,'" said another.

Those killers, whose specific murders cannot be described because privacy laws protect even psychopaths, were not hesitant to talk about their actions. That may be partly because they are "narcissistic enough that anytime people want to talk about them they are happy to do it," psychologist Jeffrey Hancock of Cornell University, lead author of the study, said in a telephone interview. The study, "Hungry like the Wolf: A Word-Pattern Analysis of the Language of Psychopaths," was published in the journal Legal and Criminological Psychology.

The non-psychopathic killers, by contrast, were far more likely to describe their past in terms that reflected social needs, like family, religion and spirituality.

"In the context of a committed murder, it is likely that the non-psychopaths were aware of and affected by the profound effects their crime would have had on their own families and the victim's family," the study says. No such concern was shown among the psychopaths.

The bottom line: "Psychopaths operate on a primitive but rational level," say the researchers.

Yet all the killers were willing to talk for nearly half an hour about crimes that destroyed other lives, in some cases showing an eagerness to deal with their own past, at least among non-psychopathic killers. The psychopathic convicts saw themselves as victims of circumstances that they could not control, and they unemotionally described the crimes in the past tense -- gone but not forgotten.

This is believed to be a new approach to analyzing the actions of psychopaths, although there has been much research into the psychopathic mind. Other studies have shown psychopaths have an inflated and immutable sense of self-worth, thinking the world is "theirs for the taking." They are nearly always men, and contrary to a common image, most are not stupid.

But why would language -- or the words used to describe a violent crime -- be very telling? Because many "are skilled conversationalists and use language to lie to, charm, and ultimately use others for material gain, drugs, sex, or power," the study says.

So the researchers ended up with words, more than 120,000 of them, from the interviews, which they pumped into their computers. The psychopaths used about "twice as many words related to basic physiological needs, including eating, drinking and monetary resources when describing their murder" than the 38 killers who were not considered psychopaths.

A decade ago, when Hancock and his colleague Michael Woodworth were both working on their doctorates, they thought of combining their interests -- Hancock was studying language and Woodworth was studying psychopaths -- to see if they could find insights into the mind of a psychopath by the language he used.

They think they have found that, in this "leading edge" study, as Hancock put it, because the words are not purely voluntary. They are "beyond conscious control," and thus revealing.

But can language really telegraph the intentions of a very sick mind? Maybe, but Hancock said this "is not going to be the kind of thing where people will run an algorithm and label this person a psychopath.

"It's going to be one tool that an investigator or clinician can use in an overall assessment," he said.

As many other studies have shown, even a twisted mind knows how to hide, as we have seen so tragically and so frequently in the human pageant.

Your Cheating Heart: iPhone App Finds Wife With Another Man

 

A man has posted a screen shot that he says is proof his wife cheated on him. He says he found her out by installing the new "Find My Friends" app on her iPhone 4s. 

When Apple released its new iOS 5 operating system to go with its iPhone 4S, it touted a new app called "Find My Friends" as a great way to track and meet up with friends. If they agree, you can see their locations on a map on your screen.

But the app's enterprising customers are apparently already finding other uses. If the online posts appearing on a chat forum at MacRumors.com are for real, "Find My Friends" may have already claimed its first marriage.

Saturday night on MacRumors, a man saying he lived in New York City posted this:

"Divorcing wife. Thanks iPhone 4s and Find My Friends.

"I got my wife a new 4s and loaded up find my friends without her knowing. She told me she was at her friends house in the east village. I've had suspicions about her meeting this guy who live uptown. Lo and behold, Find my Friends has her right there.

"I just texted her asking where she was and the dumb b---- said she was on 10th Street!! Thank you Apple, thank you App Store, thank you all. These beautiful treasure trove of screen shots [sic] going to play well when I meet her ... at the lawyer's office in a few weeks.

"thankfully, she's the rich one."

It could not be determined whether the comments posted on MacRumors were, in fact, authentic, and the man did not immediately reply to a request from ABC News for comment. But more than 100,000 people have viewed the posts, according to MacRumors. More than 300 of them replied with expressions of sympathy, skepticism and -- this being the Internet -- a few less-than-savory jokes.

Arnold Kim, the editorial director of MacRumors, said it was "definitely a busy thread." MacRumors did not try to verify the man's story (if, in fact, it was a man), but said everyone who registers for its forums has to validate their email when they register.

"Find My Friends" uses the iPhone or iPad's cellular network data, plus local Wi-Fi networks and the Global Positioning System to show your friends' locations on a map on the screen of your device. Apple would not offer numbers, but GPS usually can be accurate to within a few feet for civilian uses.

Apple says "The Find My Friends app is a great way to share your location with people who are important to you" -- whether you're trying to meet friends at a crowded concert or make sure your kids get safely home from school.

The man was back with a new post less than an hour later, including a couple of screen grabs showing the location of his wife was on East 65th St., though she sent him a text message saying, "Was hard to find stupid cab hate meat packing...."

The husband again: "She said she is in meat packing district which is on 12th street. I DONT THINK SO. Appreicate [sic] the support. not my finest hour here but going to get better soon."

The new iPhone 4S and operating system have been off-the-charts successes for Apple, which said this morning that it sold more than four million iPhone 4S in three days, and that 25 million people are now using iOS 5.

Technology watchers are particularly struck by Siri -- the voice-recognition "personal assistant" built into the new software that accepts spoken commands, answers questions, and is eerily intelligent in its responses.

There was a memorial service Sunday night for Steve Jobs on the campus of Stanford University, near Apple's corporate headquarters in California, amid widespread stories that he was deeply involved in the next iPhone -- the replacement for the iPhone 4S.

The presumably-jilted husband put up one last post Saturday night: "what really chaps my a-- is not the cheating but the fact that they were probably admiring and laughing over the new phone I BOUGHT. haha. well someone about to get the last laugh tonight."

And that was the last from him. The whole thing may have been a joke, or a domestic tragedy. Ben Crompton, who writes the Pocket Lint blog, said there have certainly been other apps before, such as Google Latitude, that let you track people through GPS signals, but Apple will make it trendy.

"The burning issue seems to be that it is a very powerful tool to have," he wrote, "bringing with it huge amounts of info to the user as well as delivering plenty of info about the user to others. For some this power will outdo the user's knowledge of how to use it properly."

"Still, on the up side," he concluded, "maybe Siri will be able to offer some marriage guidance advice."

Keep your brain young with help from Anti-Aging Games and Tecca

 Have fun, relax, and improve memory with these games (and these tips!)

All of us wish we could stay young and healthy forever, and none of us is looking forward to facing the negative changes that aging will eventually bring to our minds and bodies. Fortunately, research shows that there are actually a number of relatively simple things you can do to ward off some of the less desirable effects on our brains as we age. More fortunately still, there's a company providing research-backed relief against some of the more dire consequences of aging, particularly in the realm of memory loss.

Anti-Aging Games features a suite of browser-based games designed to improve memory, sharpen focus, and increase relaxation in cognitively healthy adults over the age of 35. Founded by cognitive scientist and CEO Elizabeth Amini, the company's games are designed by Atari legend Nolan Bushnell and backed by the research of a team of world-class neurobehavioral scientists. It's a socially responsible business to boot, donating 20% of its pre-tax profits to charities dedicated to improving the quality and length of life around the world.

Developed to be fun and easy to play, Anti-Aging Games are accessible from any Mac or PC with internet access. The goal is to stimulate your brain, mentally engage you, and give you simple tips for changing your lifestyle in ways that could have a surprisingly big impact on your cognitive health later in life. There's also a personalized tracking system to analyze your progress and deliver greater challenges to you once you've mastered the basics.

Tecca readers can get in on the action with a free month of gameplay and a reduced subscription rate over the life of your membership ($9.99/mo instead of $12.99) should you decide to continue based on your impressions in the first month. Simply head over to www.anti-aginggames.com and enter the following VIP code: TeccaVIP. Much like with Netflix or Audible trials, you'll need to provide credit card information to kick off the free trial.

If you have a chance to check it out, please let us know what you think. We're going to be trying out the games here at Tecca in a last-ditch effort to save our sad, addled noodles that are being constantly besieged by shiny distractions on the internet. You'll be the first to know about it if we are able to note any improvements in ability to remember things, or focus on any one topic long enough to actually finish an artic... ooh look, a helpful video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tcEgqTWbxQ&feature=player_embedded

Dealing with the police because the photo on the Mall

Photo of Chris White's daughter, Hazel (4 years), who questioned the manager Mal Braehaed and the police just because the photo was taken at the mall.

  



Photographing a child alone in a mall are common. However, in Glasgow, Scotland, this action causes a father to deal with mall managers and police management.

Chris White said, he was very surprised when a mall security officer approached him in Braehaed. The security guard asked him to remove illegal images are taken, the image her son, Hazel (4). White said he asked out of the mall and questioned by police, citing legislation on terrorism.

A spokesman from the mall apologized and said the police were right to be reassessed. "We've heard the public debate about our photography policy. As a result, we changed that policy and allow family and friends to take pictures at the mall, "said mall spokeswoman.

White said he was very happy because it changed its policy banning mall photo shoot. "Braehaed apologize for what I experienced. They use common sense and change their weird policies about taking photos, "said White again. (AP / AFP / JOE)