Research Group for Emotions, Sociality, and Computing

People

My main research interests are in the study of human emotions. My first studies, about ten years ago, dealt with recognition of facial emotional expressions. Later I started to go more deeply into the study of nonverbal expression and communication. At the time I was working with nonverbal expression of emotions in family I got interested in contagion of emotions. A significant part of my thesis "Contagion and Modulation of Human Emotions" dealt with mechanisms of emotional contagion. Earlier I did research with various kinds of observational methods. I got acquainted with, for example, the Facial Action Coding System. I did a lot of videotaping etc. However, while doing doctoral research I started to study also measurement of human physiology. I learned, for example, facial electromyography, EMG, and electroencephalography, EEG.

My current research interests and topics include, for example, neural mechanisms of human emotions, contagion of emotion, human-computer interaction, and emotions in face and voice including synthesized emotions.

Group leader
Veikko Surakka Professor, Ph.D. room: 2008 veikko.surakka@uta.fi tel. +358 3 3551 8551 Currently working as a visiting professor in Stanford University vsurakka@stanford.edu
Research staff
Jenni Anttonen Researcher, M.Sc. room: 2044-45 jenni@cs.uta.fi tel. +358 3 3551 4033 Webpage	I joined the group in year 2003 and graduated as M.Sc. in 2005 from Interactive Tecnology. My Master's thesis title was "Using the EMFi chair to measure the user's emotion-related heart rate responses". My Ph.D. research focuses on perceiving and recognizing emotion-related physiological changes in the user and studying how that information can be used to enhance human-computer interaction.
Yulia Gizatdinova (prev. Ioulia Guizatdinova) Researcher, M.Sc. room: 2046-47 ig74400@cs.uta.fi tel. +358 3 3551 4030	I received my Master of Science degree in Physics from Rostov State University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, in 2002. As minor subjects I studied mathematics, computer science, biophysics and statistics. My research interests are visual perception, image processing and recognition. At present I am working in staff of the ESC group as a researcher. I am working on my doctoral thesis in which I am trying to develop an automated recognition system for facial expressions and recognition of the identity independent of the facial expressions of emotions.
Marko Illi Researcher, M.A. room: 4039 mi56673@uta.fi tel. +358 3 3551 8565	I received my Master of Arts degree in psychology from the University of Tampere in 2001. My master's thesis examined the perception of emotion from human face and voice. As minor subjects, I studied computer science, social psychology, sociology, social politics, audiovisual media culture, statistical methods, and adult education. At the moment, I am working as a researcher. My research interests include gaze-based interaction techniques, socially and emotionally competent interfaces, and solutions for disabled people. One of the reasons why I am interested in studying solutions for disabled is that I injured my spinal cord in 1992 and it resulted in four-limb paralysis.
Mirja Ilves Researcher, M.A. room: 2044-45 mirja@cs.uta.fi tel. +358 3 3551 4032	I received my Master of Arts degree in psychology from the University of Tampere in spring 2003. In my thesis, I examined doctors’ and information technology workers’ work exhaustion and coping strategies. As minor subjects, I studied for example social psychology, business administration and education. In the autumn of 2002 I started to work in ESC group as a psychology trainee and since then I have worked as a researcher. In my doctoral work I will concentrate emotional feedback and intervention in human computer interaction.
Jani Lylykangas Researcher, M.A. room: 0109 janil@cs.uta.fi tel. +358 3 3551 8565	I am a psychologist and I have been working in ESC group since 2001, first as a psychology trainee, and after that as a researcher. At the moment I am working in Tekes funded Mobile Haptics project. Previously I have participated in research projects called 'User Interfaces based on Electromechanical Film Technology' (2002-2003) and 'Biometrics and Security - BioSec' (2003-2005). In the projects I have been conducting empirical research and surveys in the context of human-technology interaction and human emotions. In addition that, I have been participating in usability evaluations at the TAUCHI Usability Laboratory for different products and applications.
Toni Vanhala Researcher, M.Sc. room: 2012 toni.vanhala@cs.uta.fi tel. +358 3 3551 4036 Webpage	I am a PhD student in Interactive Technology as well as a researcher in the Face Interface project. The aim of my thesis is to construct an adaptive system for treating social and emotional disorders, for example, social anxiety and fear of flying. This system will attend to physiological signals, such as facial muscle and heart activity, estimate the person's psychological state from these signals, and adapt the intensity of therapy accordingly. Thus, my work is quite multi-disciplinary and includes diverse fields of research, such as: basic, empirical research on psychophysiological responses to computer stimuli, algorithm and software development, and interface design and experimental evaluation. In general, I am mostly focusing on novel wireless and wearable physiological measurements developed in the Face Interface project.
Kimmo Vuorinen Researcher, M.Sc. room: 4003 kimmo.vuorinen@cs.uta.fi tel. +358 3 3551 8565	I received my master's degree in interactive technology from the University of Tampere in the beginning of 2005. As minor subjects I studied hypermedia, journalism and mass communication and japanese language. Since 2004, I have been working in the ESC group as a researcher in the Biosec (Biometric Security) project. My doctoral work focuses on the usability and acceptance of biometric recognition devices.
Students and research interns
Jouni Erola Research assistant room: 2044-45 jouni.erola@cs.uta.fi tel. +358 3 3551 4032	I'm studying interactive technology in our university for last year and been part of the group since spring 2007. I am working as a research assistant. My research area is at the moment computer vision for human face. I'm currently doing my masters thesis "locating facial landmarks from real time video" for the group and I will graduate in spring 2008. I'm also part of the Wireless User Interfaces - consortium. I have strong programming background but today I am more interested in making machine-human communication as natural as it can be.
Katri Salminen Research assistant room: 0109 katri.salminen@uta.fi tel. +358 3 3551 7764	I'm a fifth year psychology student at the University of Tampere. As minors I have studied statistics, social psychology, business management and different courses (eg. usability) at Tampere Technical University. Currently I'm working at ESC group. My main areas of interest are psychological knowledge combined with technical developement.
Affiliated staff
Anne Aula Poika Isokoski
Alumni
Timo Partala
Previous staff
Aija Hakonen Maria Jokiniemi Matleena Koivisto Jouni Laakso Katri Lylykangas Top of page