Method, program, and system for automatic profiling of entities

• US 20060260624A1
• Filed: 05/17/2005
• Published: 11/23/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Battelle Memorial Institute
• Original Assignee: Battelle Memorial Institute
• Inventors: May, Richard A., Schur, Anne, Hohimer, Ryan E.
• Application Number:
  US11/131,543
• Publication Number:
  US 20060260624A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 128/898
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/16 Devices for psychotechnics using teaching or educational appliances G09B1/00 - G09B7/00; Testing reaction times ; Devices for evaluating the psychological state
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/20 Movements or behaviour, e.g. gesture recognition recognition of facial expressions G06V40/16
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/26 Recognition of special voice characteristics, e.g. for use in lie detectors; Recognition of animal voices
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

A method for automatic profiling of an entity and a system adopting the method comprises acquiring sensory data having at least one behavioral cue of the entity; annotating the behavioral cues according to an ontology; assigning a behavioral signature to an annotated-behavioral-cue set, wherein the annotated-behavioral-cue set comprises at least one annotated behavioral cue; and associating human subjectivity information with a behavioral-signature set, wherein the behavioral-signature set comprises at least one behavioral signature.

Claims

1. A method for automatic profiling of an entity comprising the steps of:

a. acquiring sensory data comprising at least one behavioral cue of the entity;

b. annotating the behavioral cues according to an ontology;

c. assigning a behavioral signature to an annotated-behavioral-cue set, wherein the annotated-behavioral-cue set comprises at least one annotated behavioral cue; and

d. associating human subjectivity information with a behavioral-signature set, wherein the behavioral-signature set comprises at least one behavioral signature.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein said annotating comprises labeling behavioral cues with text, graphics, symbols, numbers, colors, data graphs, spectrographs, diagrams, or combinations thereof.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the sensory data comprises multimodal sensory data.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the sensory data comprises information provided by sensor devices.

5. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein the sensor devices are selected from the group consisting of video sensors, audio sensors, biometric sensors, thermometers, accelerometers, or combinations thereof.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the sensory data comprises information provided by an information tool.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, wherein the information tool is selected from the group consisting of surveys, questionnaires, census data, information databases, historical records, and combinations thereof.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the automatic profiling occurs substantially in real-time.

9. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the behavioral cues comprise behaviors selected from the group consisting of gaze direction, word sense categories, speech disfluencies, prosodic features, body posture, facial expressions, gestures, and combinations thereof.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the entity is an individual, a group, or a society.

11. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the assigning step, the associating step, or a combination thereof are accomplished using an artificial neural network.

12. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the assigning step further comprises recognizing patterns of annotated behavioral cues.

13. The method as recited in claim 12, further comprising the step of representing the patterns visually.

14. The method as recited in claim 12, wherein the recognizing is deterministic or stochastic.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the deterministic recognizing is based on an ontology.

16. The method as recited in claim 15, wherein the ontology comprises a model selected from the group consisting of parametrics, derivations of neuro-linguistic programming concepts, model-based assessments, communication hierarchy, Hofestede'"'"'s cultural dimensions, cognitive situation assessment models, and combinations thereof.

17. The method as recited in claim 1, the associating step further comprises comparing the behavioral-signature set with a human subjectivity database.

18. The method as recited in claim 17, wherein the human subjectivity database comprises data relating behavioral signatures to cognitive states, emotional states, motivations, cognitive processes, cultural signatures, or combinations thereof.

19. The method as recited in claim 17, further comprising the step of refining the human subjectivity database with the behavioral-signature set.

20. The method as recited in claim 17, further comprising the step of predicting future behavior of the entity from the behavioral-signature set.

21. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the step of updating a cultural data warehouse according to input from a user.

22. The method as recited in claim 21, wherein the input from the user is selected from the group consisting of adding to the ontology, defining behavioral signatures, confirming assignments, confirming associations, rejecting assignments, rejecting associations, and combinations thereof.

23. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the automatic profiling comprises characterizing a cognitive state, emotional state, motivation, cognitive process, intent, cultural signature, or combination thereof of the entity based on behavioral cues.

24. The method as recited in claim 1, implemented on a computer.

25. A system comprising:

a. at least one instrument for collecting sensory data, said sensory data comprising behavioral cues;

b. a computer readable medium comprising a program, said program comprising;

i. logic to handle said sensory data, wherein the sensory data comprises behavioral cues;

ii. logic to annotate the behavioral cues according to an ontology;

iii. logic to assign a behavioral signature to an annotated-behavioral-cue set comprising at least one annotated behavioral cue;

iv. logic to associate human subjectivity information with a behavioral-signature set, wherein the behavioral-signature set comprises at least one behavioral signature; and

c. at least one device for implementing the computer readable medium;

wherein said system enables automatic behavior detection and profiling of at least one entity.

26. The system as recited in claim 25, wherein the instrument comprises a device selected from the group consisting of video sensors, audio sensors, biometric sensors, thermometers, accelerometers, surveys, census data, writing samples, and combinations thereof.

27. The system as recited in claim 25, wherein said behavioral cues comprise behaviors selected from the group consisting of gaze direction, word sense categories, speech disfluencies, prosodic features, body posture, facial expressions, gestures, etc., and combinations thereof.

28. The system as recited in claim 25, further comprising logic to enable a user to update a cultural data warehouse.

29. The system as recited in claim 25, wherein said computer readable medium further comprises a human subjectivity database

30. The system as recited in claim 25, further comprising logic to predict future behavior of the entity based on the behavioral-signature set.

31. The system as recited in claim 25, further comprising a learning algorithm.

32. The system as recited in claim 31, wherein the learning algorithm expands the human subjectivity database with behavioral-signature sets.

33. The system as recited in claim 25, wherein said automatic profiling of said entity comprises characterization of cognitive states, emotional states, motivations, cognitive processes, cultural signatures, or combinations thereof based on said behavioral cues.