A Northern Ireland team is leading the search for a thinking computer which can sense a user's mood.
Researchers at Queen's University in Belfast hope to complete the 10m euro project for an emotion-sensitive computer within four years.
The aim is to enable computers to think and behave more like humans.
The European-wide project is being coordinated from the university's School of Psychology and involves 160 researchers from 27 institutions.
The university's researchers developed the proposal and negotiated the contract with the European Commission.
The academics said the work would build upon attempts to create "multi-modal interfaces" which allow machines to sense and respond to the moods of the user.
Programme coordinator Professor Roddy Cowie said while it sounded like science fiction, computers which responded to human emotion would emerge.
"At the moment, our use of computers is limited by the fact that we need a keyboard and a screen to access them," he said.
"It would make an enormous difference if we could interact with them by speaking normally - perhaps through a microphone and a transmitter in a 'Star Trek' badge.
"But emotion is part of normal speech, and experience has shown that most users are deeply uncomfortable with speech interfaces that ignore it - too uncomfortable to use them very much.
"If we can make computers more intuitive and expressive, and also less challenging to use, there is enormous potential to let people make fuller use of information technology."
The emotion-sensitive computer would have its own "personality" and establish a social relationship with the user.
"It's a fair bet that in 30 years' time, emotion-sensitive interfaces will be as much part of life as windows and mouse interfaces are now," said Professor Cowie.
The project team believes such computers would play a major role in teaching and learning.
北愛爾蘭的一個研究小組正在研究一種會思考的電腦，這種電腦能夠感知使用者的情緒。
貝爾法斯特女王大學(xué)的研究者們希望四年內(nèi)、花費一千萬歐元能夠研制出這種具有感知情感功能的電腦。
其目的就是讓電腦像人一樣思考和活動。
這項遍及整個歐洲的研究項目由女王大學(xué)心理學(xué)院協(xié)調(diào)安排，來自27個研究機構(gòu)的160位研究人員參與了這項工作。
女王大學(xué)的研究人員制定了一份方案，并就此與歐盟執(zhí)行委員會進行了商議。
研究人員們說這項工作試圖創(chuàng)建“多種模式的界面”，這種“多種模式的界面”能夠使機器感應(yīng)使用者的情緒。
項目協(xié)調(diào)人羅迪·考伊教授說雖然這項工作聽起來像科幻小說，能根據(jù)人類情感做出反應(yīng)的電腦終將出現(xiàn)。
他說：“目前，我們使用電腦是受到客觀限制的，我們只能通過鍵盤和顯示器才能使用電腦。
“如果我們正常說話就可以和電腦溝通，也許是通過類似《星際迷航》中的徽章里隱藏的麥克風(fēng)和發(fā)射器，結(jié)果就大不一樣了。
“然而情感是正常說話的一部分，經(jīng)驗顯示，大多數(shù)使用者對那種忽視情感的語言界面都會深感不舒服，以致于都不愿經(jīng)常使用它們。
“如果我們能讓電腦更直觀、更善于表達，使用起來也不覺得太難的話，那么人們更加充分利用信息技術(shù)的潛力是巨大的?！?BR> 能夠感知情感的電腦會有它自己的“個性”，并且能與使用者建立一種社會關(guān)系。
考伊教授說：“很可能在未來30年的時間里，能夠感知情感的界面將會像目前的視窗與鼠標(biāo)界面一樣成為我們?nèi)粘Ｉ畹闹匾糠帧！?BR> 這個項目研究小組的全體人員相信這種電腦將會在教學(xué)方面起到很重要的作用。
Researchers at Queen's University in Belfast hope to complete the 10m euro project for an emotion-sensitive computer within four years.
The aim is to enable computers to think and behave more like humans.
The European-wide project is being coordinated from the university's School of Psychology and involves 160 researchers from 27 institutions.
The university's researchers developed the proposal and negotiated the contract with the European Commission.
The academics said the work would build upon attempts to create "multi-modal interfaces" which allow machines to sense and respond to the moods of the user.
Programme coordinator Professor Roddy Cowie said while it sounded like science fiction, computers which responded to human emotion would emerge.
"At the moment, our use of computers is limited by the fact that we need a keyboard and a screen to access them," he said.
"It would make an enormous difference if we could interact with them by speaking normally - perhaps through a microphone and a transmitter in a 'Star Trek' badge.
"But emotion is part of normal speech, and experience has shown that most users are deeply uncomfortable with speech interfaces that ignore it - too uncomfortable to use them very much.
"If we can make computers more intuitive and expressive, and also less challenging to use, there is enormous potential to let people make fuller use of information technology."
The emotion-sensitive computer would have its own "personality" and establish a social relationship with the user.
"It's a fair bet that in 30 years' time, emotion-sensitive interfaces will be as much part of life as windows and mouse interfaces are now," said Professor Cowie.
The project team believes such computers would play a major role in teaching and learning.
北愛爾蘭的一個研究小組正在研究一種會思考的電腦，這種電腦能夠感知使用者的情緒。
貝爾法斯特女王大學(xué)的研究者們希望四年內(nèi)、花費一千萬歐元能夠研制出這種具有感知情感功能的電腦。
其目的就是讓電腦像人一樣思考和活動。
這項遍及整個歐洲的研究項目由女王大學(xué)心理學(xué)院協(xié)調(diào)安排，來自27個研究機構(gòu)的160位研究人員參與了這項工作。
女王大學(xué)的研究人員制定了一份方案，并就此與歐盟執(zhí)行委員會進行了商議。
研究人員們說這項工作試圖創(chuàng)建“多種模式的界面”，這種“多種模式的界面”能夠使機器感應(yīng)使用者的情緒。
項目協(xié)調(diào)人羅迪·考伊教授說雖然這項工作聽起來像科幻小說，能根據(jù)人類情感做出反應(yīng)的電腦終將出現(xiàn)。
他說：“目前，我們使用電腦是受到客觀限制的，我們只能通過鍵盤和顯示器才能使用電腦。
“如果我們正常說話就可以和電腦溝通，也許是通過類似《星際迷航》中的徽章里隱藏的麥克風(fēng)和發(fā)射器，結(jié)果就大不一樣了。
“然而情感是正常說話的一部分，經(jīng)驗顯示，大多數(shù)使用者對那種忽視情感的語言界面都會深感不舒服，以致于都不愿經(jīng)常使用它們。
“如果我們能讓電腦更直觀、更善于表達，使用起來也不覺得太難的話，那么人們更加充分利用信息技術(shù)的潛力是巨大的?！?BR> 能夠感知情感的電腦會有它自己的“個性”，并且能與使用者建立一種社會關(guān)系。
考伊教授說：“很可能在未來30年的時間里，能夠感知情感的界面將會像目前的視窗與鼠標(biāo)界面一樣成為我們?nèi)粘Ｉ畹闹匾糠帧！?BR> 這個項目研究小組的全體人員相信這種電腦將會在教學(xué)方面起到很重要的作用。