04/12/2018
“Fidgetology,” a new method of analyzing body language using artificial intelligence, was designed by a neuroscientist to quantify improvements in symptoms of ADHD and autism reports Business Wire. The application generates a rapid, single-page result after a video of people experiencing media is fed into the system.
“In much the same way a good weather map can summarize the wild complexity of Earth’s weather or even climate, the single image and plot produced by Fidgetology can describe motions and gestures across a long session,” reports Business Wire. “Extending the map analogy, with enough data, you can zoom in on any level of detail desired.”
It was developed by Boston-based mental health company Brain Power, in partnership with Amazon Web Services, using the company’s new cloud-based, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision tools. It plans to offer Fidgetology-based products to schools to help monitor students with Individualized Education Programs, in addition to digital health and pharmaceutical companies, and to those conducting clinical trials impacting mental and behavioral health.
Brain Power was founded in 2013 by cognitive neuroscientist Ned T. Sahin, Ph.D., in order to turn neuroscience innovations into products that could benefit many people in their daily lives. Specifically, he chose to address the challenges of autism, and to apply the newest in brain science from MIT and Harvard in the context of Google Glass. In 2017, Brain Power launched augmented reality smartglasses to help people with autism increase social, school and job success.
About Fidgetology, Dr. Sahin said: “I kept noticing that children moved and squirmed less when they used our augmented-reality social-skills apps, but we had no way to measure the improvement objectively, nor to summarize attention-related patterns of body motions in our hours of clinical video. Once we invented this method, I realized it could help all who care how much an audience is engaged with their material.”
Fidgetology also could be a valuable tool for content producers to gauge audience enjoyment of movies, ads, social media, TV shows, political campaigns, speeches, online courses or classroom teaching, says Business Wire.
