Superpower Glass: Delivering Unobtrusive Real-time Social Cues in Wearable Systems

TL;DR

This paper presents Superpower Glass, a wearable system on Google Glass that provides real-time facial expression cues to children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, aiming to support social interaction and emotional understanding.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel wearable system with real-time facial expression recognition and a reviewable video interface, designed specifically for at-home use by children with ASD.

Findings

System effectively delivers real-time social cues

Children with ASD showed improved social engagement

User interface facilitated review and learning

Abstract

We have developed a system for automatic facial expression recognition, which runs on Google Glass and delivers real-time social cues to the wearer. We evaluate the system as a behavioral aid for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who can greatly benefit from real-time non-invasive emotional cues and are more sensitive to sensory input than neurotypically developing children. In addition, we present a mobile application that enables users of the wearable aid to review their videos along with auto-curated emotional information on the video playback bar. This integrates our learning aid into the context of behavioral therapy. Expanding on our previous work describing in-lab trials, this paper presents our system and application-level design decisions in depth as well as the interface learnings gathered during the use of the system by multiple children with ASD in an at-home iterative trial.