Gregory AbowdGeorgia Institute of Technology | GT · School of Interactive Computing
Gregory Abowd
DPhil
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434
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Publications (434)
Background
Large-scale crisis events such as COVID-19 often have secondary impacts on individuals’ mental well-being. University students are particularly vulnerable to such impacts. Traditional survey-based methods to identify those in need of support do not scale over large populations and they do not provide timely insights. We pursue an alterna...
For today's electronics manufacturing process, the emphasis on stable functionality, durability, and fixed physical forms is designed to ensure long-term usability. However, this focus on robustness and permanence complicates the disassembly and recycling processes, leading to significant environmental repercussions. In this paper, we present three...
In the mental health domain, patient engagement is key to designing human-centered technologies. CSCW and HCI researchers have delved into various facets of collaboration in AI research; however, previous research neglects the individuals who both produce the data and will be most impacted by the resulting technologies, such as patients. This study...
Application developers frequently augment their code to produce event logs of specific operations performed by their users. Subsequent analysis of these event logs can help provide insight about the users' behavior relative to its intended use. The analysis process typically includes both event organization and pattern discovery activities. However...
Transition planning is a collaborative process to promote agency in students with disabilities by encouraging them to participate in setting their own goals with team members and learn ways to assess their progress towards the goals. For autistic young adults who experience a lower employment rate, less stability in employment, and lower community...
BACKGROUND
Large-scale crisis events like COVID-19 often have secondary impacts on individuals’ mental wellbeing. University students are particularly vulnerable to such impacts. Traditional survey-based methods to identify those in need of support do not scale over large populations and they do not provide timely insights. We pursue an alternative...
A comprehensive understanding of collocated social interactions can help campuses and organizations better support their community. Universities could determine new ways to conduct classes and design programs by studying how students have collocated in the past. However, this needs data that describe large groups over a long period. Harnessing user...
Infectious diseases, like COVID-19, pose serious challenges to university campuses, which typically adopt closure as a non-pharmaceutical intervention to control spread and ensure a gradual return to normalcy. Intervention policies, such as remote instruction (RI) where large classes are offered online, reduce potential contact but also have broad...
Social media platforms are being utilized by individuals with mental illness for engaging in self-disclosure, finding support, or navigating treatment journeys. Individuals also increasingly bring their social media data to psychotherapy consultations. This emerging practice during psychotherapy can help us to better understand how patients appropr...
We have witnessed explosive growth in computing devices at all scales, in particular with small wireless devices that can permeate most of our physical world. The IoT industry is helping to fuel this insatiable desire for more and more data. We have to balance this growth with an understanding of its environmental impact. Indeed, the ENSsys communi...
Conventional vision-based systems, such as cameras, have demonstrated their enormous versatility in sensing human activities and developing interactive environments. However, these systems have long been criticized for incurring privacy, power, and latency issues due to their underlying structure of pixel-wise analog signal acquisition, computation...
Snacking, unlike meals, can happen in short, sporadic bursts, often coupled with distractions, thereby rendering the detection of such episodes a challenging problem. Despite the importance of understanding snacking behavior to monitor the dietary habits of individuals, few eating detection systems report their efficacy for detecting snacking episo...
Deviant eating behavior such as skipping meals and consuming unhealthy meals has a significant association with mental well-being in college students. However, there is more to what an individual eats. While eating patterns form a critical component of their mental well-being, insights and assessments related to the interplay of eating patterns and...
Laptop webcams can be covertly activated by malware and law enforcement agencies. Consequently, 59% percent of Americans manually cover their webcams to avoid being surveilled. However, manual covers are prone to human error---through a survey with 200 users, we found that 61.5% occasionally forget to re-attach their cover after using their webcam....
Supervised training of human activity recognition (HAR) systems based on body-worn inertial measurement units (IMUs) is often constrained by the typically rather small amounts of labeled sample data. Systems like IMUTube have been introduced that employ cross-modality transfer approaches to convert videos of activities of interest into virtual IMU...
A major cost, inconvenience, and source of failure for adding sensors and electronic accessories to automobiles is wiring the systems into the car’s power supply. We propose an alternative approach, computer-proximal energy harvesting, which harvests power locally, so wiring is not needed. In this article, we provide an overview of the principles a...
Background:
Previous studies have suggested that social media data, along with machine learning algorithms, can be used to generate computational mental health insights. These computational insights have the potential to support clinician-patient communication during psychotherapy consultations. However, how clinicians perceive and envision using...
Augmenting everyday surfaces with interaction sensing capability that is maintenance-free, low-cost (∼ $1), and in an appropriate form factor is a challenge with current technologies. MARS (Multi-channel Ambiently-powered Realtime Sensing) enables battery-free sensing and wireless communication of touch, swipe, and speech interactions by combining...
Today's smartphones and wearable devices come equipped with an array of inertial sensors, along with IMU-based Human Activity Recognition models to monitor everyday activities. However, such models rely on large amounts of annotated training data, which require considerable time and effort for collection. One has to recruit human subjects, define c...
Recently, IMUTube introduced a paradigm change for bootstrapping human activity recognition (HAR) systems for wearables. The key idea is to utilize videos of activities to support training activity recognizers based on inertial measurement units (IMUs). This system retrieves video from public repositories and subsequently generates virtual IMU data...
Human environments are filled with large open spaces that are separated by structures like walls, facades, glass windows, etc. Most often, these structures are largely passive offering little to no interactivity. In this paper, we present Duco, a large-scale electronics fabrication robot that enables room-scale & building-scale circuitry to add int...
Aim
To evaluate the psychometric properties of a 4‐minute assessment designed to identify early autism spectrum disorder (ASD) status through evaluation of early social responsiveness (ESR).
Method
This retrospective, preliminary study included children between 13 and 24 months (78 males, 79 females mean age 19.4mo, SD 3.1) from two independent da...
Augmenting everyday surfaces with interaction sensing capability that is maintenance-free, low-cost (about $1), and in an appropriate form factor is a challenge with current technologies. MARS (Multi-channel Ambiently-powered Realtime Sensing) enables battery-free sensing and wireless communication of touch, swipe, and speech interactions by combin...
Infectious diseases, like COVID-19, pose serious challenges to university campuses, and they typically adopt closure as a non-pharmaceutical intervention to control spread early and ensure a gradual return to normalcy. These policies, like remote instruction (SQ), reduce potential contact but also have broad side-effects on campus by hampering loca...
Background: Eating behavior has a high impact on the well-being of an individual. Such behavior involves not only when an individual is eating, but also various contextual factors such as with whom and where an individual is eating and what kind of food the individual is eating. Despite the relevance of such factors, most automated eating detection...
BACKGROUND
Extant studies have suggested that social media data, along with machine learning algorithms, can be used to generate computational mental health insights. Those computational insights have potential to support clinician-patient communication during psychotherapy consultations. However, it has been underexplored how clinicians would perc...
We envision a new generation of computation devices, computational materials, which are self-sustainable, cheaply manufactured at scale and exhibit form factors that are easily incorporated into everyday environments. These materials can enable ordinary objects such as walls, carpet, furniture, jewelry, and cups to do computational things without l...
Ubiquitous computing requires robust and sustainable sensing techniques to detect users for explicit and implicit inputs. Existing solutions with cameras can be privacy-invasive. Battery-powered sensors require user maintenance, preventing practical ubiquitous sensor deployment. We present OptoSense, a general-purpose self-powered sensing system wh...
The lack of large-scale, labeled data sets impedes progress in developing robust and generalized predictive models for on-body sensor-based human activity recognition (HAR). Labeled data in human activity recognition is scarce and hard to come by, as sensor data collection is expensive, and the annotation is time-consuming and error-prone. To addre...
Self-esteem encompasses how individuals evaluate themselves and is an important contributor to their success. Self-esteem has been traditionally measured using survey-based methodologies. However , surveys suffer from limitations such as retrospective recall and reporting biases, leading to a need for proactive measurement approaches. Our work uses...
Background:
Recent research has emphasized the need for accessing information about patients to augment mental health patients' verbal reports in clinical settings. Although it has not been introduced in clinical settings, computational linguistic analysis on social media has proved it can infer mental health attributes, implying a potential use a...
The lack of large-scale, labeled data sets impedes progress in developing robust and generalized predictive models for on-body sensor-based human activity recognition (HAR). Labeled data in human activity recognition is scarce and hard to come by, as sensor data collection is expensive, and the annotation is time-consuming and error-prone. To addre...
BACKGROUND
Eating behavior has a significant impact on the wellbeing of an individual. Such behavior comprises not only when an individual is eating, but also various contextual factors such as with whom and where an individual is eating, what kind of food they are having, to name but a few. Despite the significance of such factors, most automated...
Background
Eating behavior has a high impact on the well-being of an individual. Such behavior involves not only when an individual is eating, but also various contextual factors such as with whom and where an individual is eating and what kind of food the individual is eating. Despite the relevance of such factors, most automated eating detection...
BACKGROUND
This paper describes a semi-automated eating detection system that leverages Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) questions to capture contextual factors upon detecting when an individual is eating. Our validation study demonstrates the efficacy of the system by deploying it in-the-wild among college students.
OBJECTIVE
This study buil...
On university campuses, social interactions among students can explain their academic experiences. However, assessing these interactions with surveys fails to capture their dynamic nature. While these behaviors can be captured with client-based passive sensing, these techniques are limited in scalability. By contrast, infrastructure-based approache...
The widespread adoption of feature phones and smartphones has previously led researchers to test the assumption that users always have their phones ready at hand. We believe the current ubiquity of other smart devices has changed this. Using a mixed methods approach inspired by past work in this area, we reevaluate the physical proximity relationsh...
This book provides an in-depth review of the historical and state-of-the-art use of technology by and for individuals with autism. The design, development, deployment, and evaluation of interactive technologies for use by and with individuals with autism have been rapidly increasing over the last few decades. There is great promise for the use of t...
The continued proliferation of computing devices comes with an ever-increasing energy requirement, both during production and use. As awareness of the global climate emergency increases, self-powered and sustainable (Self-Sustainable) interactive devices are likely to play a valuable role. In this workshop we bring together researchers and practiti...
Organizational culture (OC) encompasses the underlying beliefs, values, and practices that are unique to organizations. However, OC is inherently subjective and a coarse construct, and therefore challenging to quantify. Alternatively, self-initiated workplace reviews on online platforms like Glassdoor provide the opportunity to leverage the richnes...
Weiser inspired us by forcing us to think differently about the size and usage patterns of computers. This vision of computational materials is similarly motivated. Indeed, inspiration is critical at this time, because there are so many challenges to overcome and it will take a community to address them. Significant technical challenges and a desir...
We present UbiquiTouch, an ultra low power wireless touch interface. With an average power consumption of 30.91μW, UbiquiTouch can run on energy harvested from ambient light. It achieves this performance through low power touch sensing and passive communication to a nearby smartphone using ambient FM backscatter. This approach allows UbiquiTouch to...
We propose Silver Tape, a simple yet novel fabrication technique to transfer inkjet-printed silver traces from paper onto versatile substrates, without time-/space- consuming processes such as screen printing or heat sintering. This allows users to quickly implement silver traces with a variety of properties by exploiting a wide range of substrates...
SATURN is a thin and flexible multi-layer material that can sense sound and other mechanical vibrations in the environment without any external power source. It is constructed of inexpensive materials (paper, copper, and plastic), so that it can be attached to a variety of objects and surfaces. When flat, SATURN's frequency response below 5000Hz is...
In this chapter, we discuss robotics and the use of socially assistive robots (SAR) for autism. While virtual agents and animated toys are sometimes considered robots, this chapter focuses on physical instantiations (both anthropomorphic and humanoid) capable of carrying out behaviorally or socially contingent actions (both autonomously and operate...
In this chapter, we describe what has come to be termed “natural user interfaces” (NUIs) and review how they have been used with individuals on the autism spectrum. Although the word natural can be hotly contested given that most movements are not actually “natural” but learned, we use the standard phrasing of natural user interfaces in this scope...
Autism is a complicated diagnosis, label, identity, and concept. Conceived as an umbrella of disabilities by clinicians, autistic experiences as described by those who live them are as vast and varied as any. Autism diagnoses are highly prevalent, engendering interest from autistic people and a vast array of professional caregivers, researchers, ed...
Use of technologies in support of autism began with the advent of the desktop computer in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The expansion of internet technologies in the last two decades has broadened this scope as well, but we here include those systems with a traditional “desktop” model to them even if people are now accessing them on a wide variet...
In this chapter, we provide a description of the methods we used to identify and classify interactive technology research included in this review. Through a high-level analysis of the existing literature, we developed a classification scheme to help categorize each technology approach. Several frameworks could be developed around the same body of l...
In this chapter, we describe a brief overview of work involving virtual (VR), augmented (AR), and mixed (MR) reality with autistic people. For the purposes of this work and using our technology platform classification scheme, this chapter includes only VR, AR, and MR applications, eventually focusing on those that use head-mounted displays, often c...
In this chapter, we discuss shared, interactive surfaces and their use in relation to autism. Shared interactive surfaces include applications that are intended for multiple users in a co-located, mostly synchronous, interaction, such as large displays, tabletop computers, electronic whiteboards, etc. However, with the popularity of larger touchscr...
In this chapter, we describe sensor-based and wearable technologies that have been used in relation to autism. Based on our classification scheme’s definition, sensor-based and wearable technologies include the use of sensors (e.g., cameras, microphones, peripheral physiological, and accelerometers), both in the environment and on the body, or comp...
In this chapter, we overview the applications designed and developed for mobile devices to empower autistic people to learn new skills and conduct a variety of tasks (King et al., 2014). Although the lines between types and sizes of devices are continually being blurred, in this chapter we distinguish mobile devices from those primarily considered...
Unlike conventional energy harvesters that are tuned to individual frequencies and are directional, the proposed wideband (23% fractional bandwidth), omnidirectional system harvests from all FM towers in vicinity. Hence, it does not require each sensor node to be carefully aligned to any one source and makes itself suited for mass-deployment applic...
Several psychologists posit that performance is not only a function of personality but also of situational contexts, such as day-level activities. Yet in practice, since only personality assessments are used to infer job performance, they provide a limited perspective by ignoring activity. However, multi-modal sensing has the potential to character...
The rapid proliferation of new computing technologies, including smart phones and wearables, has created new opportunities for designing, delivering, and evaluating health behavior interventions. This approach requires the collaboration of researchers from multiple fields, including computer scientists, psychologists, and health practitioners. This...
BACKGROUND
Recent research has emphasized a need for accessing information about patients to augment mental health patients' verbal reports in clinical settings. Even though it has not been introduced in clinical settings, computational linguistic analysis on social media has proved that it can infer mental health attributes, implying that it can b...
Organizations often strive to recruit and retain individuals who would be a "good fit" with their core values, beliefs, and practices. Person-Organization (P-O) congruence is known to explain employee satisfaction, commitment, and absenteeism. This paper proposes a new measure of P-O fit by empirically investigating the similarity of routine within...
Developing systems for Human Activity Recognition (HAR) using wearables typically relies on datasets that were manually annotated by human experts with regards to precise timings of instances of relevant activities. However, obtaining such data annotations is often very challenging in the predominantly mobile scenarios of Human Activity Recognition...
Mental health issues, which can be difficult to diagnose, are a growing concern worldwide. For effective care and support, early detection of mood-related health concerns is of paramount importance. Typically, survey based instruments including Ecologically Momentary Assessments (EMA) and Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) are the method of choice for...