focus areas
Entertainment Computing
Our research within this theme primarily concentrates on video games, with a secondary focus on social media and social robotics. The core of our work involves enhancing player experiences in gaming environments. Our projects are diverse, encompassing the development of models to improve player engagement, analysis of player personality and psychosocial traits, creation of advanced Non-Player Characters (NPC) using stochastic methods, and leveraging foundation models and generative AI in game development. We are committed to refining research methodologies in game user experience and exploring the role of serious games in education and healthcare. Our research also extends to in-game advertising and purchases, simulation games, and eSports.
Human-Centered AI
Our research is dedicated to developing human-centric metrics for evaluating and improving AI systems, with a focus on explainability, transparency, trust, fairness, and acceptance. We investigate how interface design influences these aspects and assess traditional computational metrics against human data to create benchmarks that better reflect AI performance from a human perspective. Currently, our work is centered on foundation models, particularly in text-to-image generation. We analyze these models for photorealism, caption alignment, and fidelity of AI-generated media content. Additionally, our research has focused on ethical responsibility and fairness in AI, particularly in recommendation systems, language models, autonomous vehicles, and decision-aids.
Human-System Interactions in Complex Environments
Our research focuses on designing and evaluating intelligent systems that augment human cognitive abilities in high-stakes environments. We explore how wearables, AI, and extended reality can improve operator performance and decision-making in safety critical industries like healthcare, process control, and transportation. We also address privacy and security concerns in emerging sociotechnical systems. Our research includes advancements in augmented reality aids for nuclear plant operators, augmented reality-based wearables for indoor navigation, computational models of driver behavior and situation awareness, studies on technostress in healthcare and process control, and addressing privacy issues in wearables and smart toys.