Melody Moore Jackson

Georgia Institute of Technology | GT · School of Interactive Computing

Introduction: The weave pole obstacle has been implicated in agility-related injuries and it has been speculated that changes in agility obstacle performance could indicate an injury. It is currently unknown how much variability in obstacle performance exists within a single dog. Wearable sensors have been developed to detect performance of specifi...

Injury rates of up to 42% are reported for agility canines. Biomechanics and performance variables have been minimally evaluated during completion of agility obstacles, all of which could influence injury risk factors. No studies have evaluated any of these variables with regards to the teeter obstacle. The objective of this study was to quantify t...

Canine sporting activities, such as agility, have grown in popularity. Rules differ between different governing organizations, but these differences are not rooted in evidenced-based studies that balance canine performance vs injury risk. Development of (semi)automated markerless motion capture methods of obstacle performance opens options for expl...

There are approximately a half million active service dogs in the United States, providing life-changing assistance and independence to people with a wide range of disabilities. The tremendous value of service dogs creates significant demand, which service dog providers struggle to meet. Breeding, raising, and training service dogs is an expensive,...

On-body input interfaces that can be used accurately without visual attention could have a wide range of applications where vision is needed for a primary task: emergency responders, pilots, astronauts, and people with vision impairments could benefit by making interfaces accessible. This paper describes a between-participant study (104 participant...

Losing the ability to communicate inhibits social contact, creates feelings of frustration and isolation and complicates personal comfort and medical care. Progressive diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis (MS) can cause severe motor disabilities that make communication through traditional means difficult, slow...

Animal-computer interaction is a quickly growing field in computer science however unlike HCI, there are no tools to ease interface development for its users, increasing overhead. Here, we present the beginning of a toolkit created specifically for animal interactions. We implement a gesture-based interface, a slider, as it is highly configurable i...

Medical alert dogs can save lives by alerting their human partners of impending seizures, diabetic crises, the presence of allergens, and other medical emergencies. Recent research has shown that dogs can also alert emergency services or family members through body-worn sensors. In the home, however, service dogs do not typically wear their service...

Working dogs can perform many tasks that improve the lives of humans. An explosion of new technologies in Animal-Computer Interaction enable dogs to assist in a variety of scenarios. Dogs can summon emergency services, report finding a lost child, determine what explosive they just detected, alert to a tornado siren, and much more. Giving working d...

Working dogs1 are significantly beneficial to society; however, a substantial number of dogs are released from time consuming and expensive training programs because of unsuitability in behavior. Early prediction of successful service dog placement could save time, resources, and funding. Our research focus is to explore whether aspects of canine t...

We designed a communication system for law enforcement officers to use when conducting explosive detection searches with multiple agencies. Dogs trained in explosive detection work alongside human handlers to form a K9 team, which are an integral part of these searches. Officers in K9 teams have a strong bond and communication with these dogs, but...

Canines and humans have lived together for many thousands of years, to our mutual benefit. In addition to providing companionship, dogs can perform critical roles, such as assisting humans with medical concerns, searching for lost individuals, and detecting substances by scent. Researching how technology might be designed for canines has the potent...

We describe how we trained two dogs to perform precise gestures to be sensed from an inertial measurement unit worn on a dog's collar as part of a larger research effort. These gestures could then be used to relay specific alerts to humans through a companion smartphone application. For example, a guide dog could use a set of two gestures to alert...

Touchscreens can provide a way for service dogs to relay emergency information about their handlers from a home or office environment. In this paper, we build on work exploring the ability of canines to interact with touchscreen interfaces. We observe new requirements for training and explain best practices found in training techniques. Learning fr...

Search and Rescue (SAR) is a critical component of disaster recovery efforts. Every second saved in the search increases the chances of finding survivors and the majority of these teams prefer using canines [5]. Our goal is to help enable SAR dog and handler teams to work together more effectively. Using a semi-structured interviews and guidance fr...

Working dogs are dogs with one or more specific skills that enable them to perform essential tasks for humans. In this paper we examined motion gestures that working dogs could use to unambiguously communicate with their human companions. We analyzed these gestures in terms of true positives and propensity for false positives by comparing their dyn...

Using an outward-facing display mounted on eyeglasses, MoodLens seeks to help individuals express emotion who have lost the ability to speak or use facial muscles. MoodLens looks like normal eyeglasses when not in use and allows the wearer to experience eye contact normally. We collected data from non-disabled participants (i.e., potential conversa...

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have not been adopted as a control paradigm for mainstream use because most BCI systems are cumbersome, difficult to set up, and do not generally perform well enough in mobile settings to replace existing input modalities. However, BCIs may have promise as part of multi-modal systems that augment interactions when t...

Working dogs perform a variety of essential services for their human partners, from assisting people with disabilities, to Search and Rescue, police, and military work. Recent interest in the nascent field of Animal-Computer Interaction has prompted research in computer-mediated technology for communication between working dogs and their handlers....

We explored symbolic canine-human communication for working dogs through the use of canine head gestures. We identified a set of seven criteria for selecting head gestures and identified the first four deserving further experimentation. We devised computationally inexpensive mechanisms to prototype the live system from a motion sensor on the dog's...

We present two case studies on creating wearables for dogs and discuss them in terms of challenges of safety, space, weight and comfort, that motivated them. You can use these case studies and our design process as a practical primer for designing wearables for working dogs.

We present the results of an 8-week pilot study with 55 dogs investigating whether using quantimetric monitors and a companion smartphone application can reduce returns and increase the perceived strength of bonds between newly adopted dogs from the Humane Society of Silicon Valley and their adopters. Through this pilot study, we developed guidelin...

We propose new approaches to assessing the suitability of potential working dogs for a given occupation. The main focus is placed on continuously-recording technology that does not rely on constant human observation. An example is provided in the form of a pilot study relying on activity and human-proximity data collected from dogs both prior to an...

Working dogs have improved the lives of thousands of people throughout history. However, communication between human and canine partners is currently limited. The main goal of the FIDO project is to research fundamental aspects of wearable technologies to support communication between working dogs and their handlers. In this study, the FIDO team in...

Computer-mediated interaction for working dogs is an important new domain for interaction research. In domestic settings, touchscreens could provide a way for dogs to communicate critical information to humans. In this paper we explore how a dog might interact with a touchscreen interface. We observe dogs' touchscreen interactions and record diffic...

We designed an experiment with the goal of assessing wear-able reachability for canines. We investigated the effect of placement on the ability of dogs to reach on-body interfaces with their snouts. In our pilot study, seven placements along the front legs, rib cage, hip and chest are tested with six dogs. The results showed that the front leg plac...

In situations where there is a stressful workload or when unexpected things occur, people often find it difficult to regulate their emotions. To assist them in effective regulation, this design utilizes neurofeedback, providing users real-time emotion feedback to augment their emotional states through the use of a tangible interface. The visual fee...

The Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations (FIDO) project in the Animal Interaction Lab at Georgia Tech aims to facilitate communication between working dogs and their handlers. Here, the authors discuss their research on testing a working dog's ability to perform distinct tasks in response to vibrations at different points on their bo...

Working dogs have improved the lives of thousands of people. However, communication between human and canine partners is currently limited. The main goal of the FIDO project is to research fundamental aspects of wearable technologies to support communication between working dogs and their handlers. In this pilot study, the FIDO team investigated on...

Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) measure small changes in brain signals or properties to provide alternative paths for controlling computers and other devices and for better understanding of human mental states. Although device-control has primarily been used for novel assistive technology (AT), BCIs have also been explored for use with able-bodied...

Navigating a wheelchair via a Brain-Computer Interface requires unique forms of user input. One of the goals of a wheelchair control interface is to reduce cognitive drain and facilitate as much independence as possible. In this paper we describe the development and implementation of the RealWheels system, a neurally-driven wheelchair mobility syst...

We evaluate the performance of 18 healthy subjects on a steady-state visually evoked potential brain–computer interface (BCI) under variation of two general control parameters. The BCI is a simple game amenable to performance measures such as the bitrate, decision accuracy, and optimality ratios based on an ideal human–machine system. The two param...

Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) offer users with severe motor disabilities a nonmuscular input channel for communication and control but require that users achieve a level of literacy and be able to harness their appropriate electrophysiological responses for effective use of the interface. There is currently no formalized process for determining...

The problem of classifying complex motor activities from brain imaging is relatively new territory within the fields of neuroscience and brain-computer interfaces. We report positive sign language classification results using a tournament of pairwise support vector machine classifiers for a set of 6 executed signs and also for a set of 6 imagined s...

There is a variety of brain-based interface methods which depend on measuring small changes in brain signals or properties. These methods have typically been used for nontraditional assistive technology applications. Non-traditional assistive technology is generally targeted for users with severe motor disabilities which may last long-term due to i...

The control interface is the primary component of a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) system that provides user interaction. The control interface supplies cues for performing mental tasks, reports system status and task feedback, and often displays representations of the user’s brain signals. Control interfaces play a significant role in determining...

Brain-computer Interfaces (BCIs) have been studied for nearly thirty years, with the primary motivation of providing assistive technologies for people with very severe motor disabilities. The slow speeds, high error rate, susceptibility to artifact, and complexity of BCI systems have been challenges for implementing workable real-world systems. How...

Our paper investigates the values fostered and inhibited by current Brain-computer Interface systems for the physically disabled. We report on a study conducted among 12 physically disabled individuals by employing Value Sensitive Design, a tripartite methodology accounting for human values in the design process. Our study reveals that current syst...

Direct Brain Interfaces (DBIs) have been demonstrated to provide a channel of communication and environmental control for people with severe motor disabilities. DBIs have also been proposed and implemented in gaming and other entertainment applications for mainstream users. A new study at Georgia Tech is exploring the possibility of combining direc...

Direct Brain Interfaces (DBIs) offer great possibilities for people with severe disabilities to communicate and control their environments. However, many DBI systems implement discrete selection, such as choosing a letter from an alphabet, which offers limited control over certain tasks. Continuous control is important for applications such as driv...

A long term goal of assistive technology research is to build creative expression applications where subjects can extemporaneously express themselves. Sketch drawing is one form of creative expression. In this work, we demonstrate the usability of a brain-machine interface (BMI) for expression using a letter drawing task. We describe empirical resu...

In this work, we investigate the viability of a novel combination of evoked responses as input signals for a general-purpose brain machine interface (BMI). We demonstrate response accuracy to alphanumeric stimuli in valid and mirror-reversed orientations, and show task-related activity differences correlated with rotation degree and character valid...

Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems using steady state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) have allowed healthy subjects to communicate. However, these systems may not work in severely disabled users because they may depend on gaze shifting. This study evaluates the hypothesis that overlapping stimuli can evoke changes in SSVEP activity sufficient...

The following paper reports on a prototype Brain-computer Interface designed for pervasive control by paralyzed users. Our study indicates that current control and communication devices for users with severe physical disabilities restrict control and independence, offer little articulation and communication capabilities. Integrating multiple device...

Several areas of study could provide significant breakthroughs in making direct brain interface systems work. First, improving techniques for obtaining clear and artifact-free brain signals are difficult but critical to making DBIs feasible. Invasive techniques, such as implanted electrodes, could provide better control through clearer, more distin...

Continued progress in the field of Brain Interface (BI) research has encouraged the rapid expansion of the BI community over the last two decades. As the number of BI researchers and organizations steadily increases, newer and more advanced technologies are constantly produced, evaluated, and reported. Though the BI community is committed to accura...

The development of brain interface (BI) technology continues to attract researchers with a wide range of backgrounds and expertise. Though the BI community is committed to accurate and objective evaluation of methods, systems, and technology, the very diversity of the methods and terminology used in the field hinders understanding and impairs techn...

The inability of computer users who are visually impaired to access graphical user interfaces (GUIs) has led researchers to propose approaches for adapting GUIs to auditory interfaces, with the goal of providing access for visually impaired people. This article outlines the issues involved in nonvisual access to graphical user interfaces, reviews c...

We describe the use of human cortical control signals to operate two assistive technology tools-a virtual keyboard speller and a computer-simulated digit. The cortical signals used for control are local field potentials recorded through an implanted neurotrophic electrode. In this system, the patients' cortical signals are transmitted wirelessly to...

Individuals with profound paralysis and mutism require a communication channel. Traditional assistive technology devices eventually fail, especially in the case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) subjects who gradually become totally locked-in. A direct brain-to-computer interface that provides switch functions can provide a direct communicatio...

As computing technology increasingly pervades everyday life, demand for more flexible and adaptable user interfaces increases. With advent of assistive technology for people with disabilities, user interfaces for mainstream applications become more unique and specialized. This requires user interfaces to be adapted to fit their context, consisting...

Biometric input devices can provide assistive technology access to people who have little or no motor control. We explore a biometric control interface based on the Galvanic Skin Response, to determine its effectiveness as a non-muscular channel of input. This paper presents data from several online studies of a locked-in subject using a Galvanic S...

Applications possess and implement a specific "theory of the world" or ontology. Recovering and modeling this ontology may help inform software developers seeking to extend or adapt an application's functionality for its next release. We have developed a method for the black-box reverse engineering or excavation of an application's ontology. The on...

This paper summarizes the Brain-Computer Interfaces for Communication and Control, The Second International Meeting, held in Rensselaerville, NY, in June 2002. Sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and organized by the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health, the meeting addressed current work and future plans in brain-...

The mission of the Georgia State University BrainLab is to create and adapt methods of human-computer interaction that will allow brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies to effectively control real-world applications. Most of the existing BCI applications were designed largely for training and demonstration purposes. Our goal is to research way...

The enduring effort to infuse more engineering discipline into software development has brought several issues to the forefront: standards, best practices, and, perhaps the most controversial, licensing and certification. To get an update on this area, I spoke with an expert: Leonard Tripp, Boeing Technical Fellow and past president of the IEEE Com...

One of the first, most common, and most useful applications that today's computer users access is the World Wide Web (web). One population of users for whom the web is especially important is those with motor disabilities, because it may enable them to do things that they might not otherwise be able to do: shopping; getting an education; running a...

The Internet has become an important part of our daily lives, with browsers serving as the main tool of navigation. For users with severe disabilities, access to the Internet can be crucial to quality of life, providing a myriad of services and opportunities. The GSU BrainLab is researching methods of controlling computer interfaces directly with b...

A primary charter of TCSE is supporting and promoting software engineering education. The paper looks at the major issues in SEE and their goals.

One of the first, most common, and most useful applications that today's computer users access is the World Wide Web (web). One population of users for whom the web is especially important is those with motor disabilities, because it may enable them to do things that they might not otherwise be able to do: shopping; getting an education; running a...

Even with assistive communication technology, interactive conversation is extremely difficult for users with severely limited mobility and loss of speech. Input to such devices is painfully slow and subject to high error rates with the resulting output not reliably reflecting the true intentions of the user. Conversational prediction has been incor...

People who are completely paralyzed are able to control a computer using technology which harnesses brain signals. This paper describes research in developing a system to allow such a person to communicate. We gathered and analyzed data on the communicative needs of our users, finding that style and content of interactions vary according to the rol...

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The Muscle Communicator uses electromyographic (EMG) activity to move a cursor to perform cursor navigation and text entry. The rate of text entry is measured for 10 normal subjects and three subjects with disabilities. The rates attained using optimum muscles are within the range found in the literature for the HeadMaster and mouthstick and higher...

First Page of the Article

Direct control of a computer from the human brain has been made possible by the development of an implanted electrode. This paper describes new paradigms of computer screen navigation adapted for neural signal control.

First Page of the Article

Direct control of a computer from the human brain has been made possible by the development of an implanted electrode. This paper describes new paradigms of computer screen navigation adapted for neural signal control.