CopyMe: A Facial Expressions Game

Brief

Emotional development is a key phase for growing children. For children with autism, this task becomes immensely difficult for both the children and their caregivers. Current assistive tools for autism often feel too much like clinical interventions which induces a certain stigma for children using them. By using video games, they can prospectively feel more at ease, as playing video games is a common activity amongst most children.

The purpose of this project is to create an expression recognition game to encourage positive emotional development of children, especially those with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Video games are emerging as forms of computer-aided interventions for the treatment of autism, however many do not monitor the progression of the child within the game. By learning from existing approaches in ASD games and consolidating guidelines for designing user interfaces for children with autism, this project aims to create a fun and engaging game for children with ASDs that makes use of a touch device camera as a way of classifying facial expressions in order to improve the children’s emotional understanding.

Get the app from the App Store https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/copyme/id825405687?mt=8 .

Members

Natalie Harrold
Chek Tien Tan
Daniel Rosser

Outputs

N. Harrold, C. T. Tan, D. Rosser, and T. W. Leong, “CopyMe : A Portable Real-Time Feedback Expression Recognition Game for Children,” in Proc. CHI 2014 Ext. Abstracts, 2014.

N. Harrold, C. T. Tan, D. Rosser, and T. W. Leong, “CopyMe: an Emotional Development Game for Children,” in Proc. CHI 2014 Ext. Abstracts, 2014.

Exclusive Interview on SMH Brink. URL: http://www.smh.com.au/national/right-on-cue-app-helps-with-autism-20140514-389xv.html

Exclusive Interview on U:Magazine. URL: http://newsroom.uts.edu.au/news/2014/05/serious-games

C. T. Tan, N. Harrold, and D. Rosser, “Designing CopyMe : an expression mimicking serious game,” in Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia 2013 MGIA (Presentation), 2013.

C. T. Tan, N. Harrold, and D. Rosser, “Can you CopyMe ?: an expression mimicking serious game,” in Proceedings of SIGGRAPH ASIA 2013 MGIA (Demo), 2013.

N. Harrold, C. T. Tan, and D. Rosser, “Towards an Expression Recognition Game to Assist the Emotional Development of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders,” inProceedings of WASA, SIGGRAPH ASIA, 2012.

Oct. 25, 2016, 2:53 p.m.