Multimodal Human-Computer Interfaces Based on Advanced Video and Audio Analysis

Abstract

Multimodal interfaces development history is reviewed briefly in the introduction. Some applications of multimodal interfaces to education software for disabled people are presented. One of them, the LipMouse is a novel, vision-based human-computer interface that tracks user's lip movements and detect lips gestures. A new approach to diagnosing Parkinson's disease is also shown. The progression of the disease can be measured employing the UPDRS (Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale) scale which is used to evaluate motor and behavioral symptoms of the Parkinson's disease, based on the multimodal interface called Virtual-Touchpad (VTP) used for supporting medical diagnosis. The scent emitting multimodal computer interface provides an important supplement of the polysensoric stimulation process, playing an essential role in education and therapy of children with certain developmental disorders. The Smart Pen providing a tool for supporting therapy of developmental dyslexia is presented and results achieved with its application are discussed. The eye-gaze tracking system named Cyber Eye, developed at the Multimedia Systems Department employed to many kinds of experiments is presented including analysis of visual activity of patients remaining in vegetative state and their awareness evaluation. The paper is concluded with some general remarks concerning the role of multimodal computer interfaces applied to learning, therapy and everyday usage of computerized devices. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.