Controlling an influence on a user in a rendering environment

• US 9,612,654 B2
• Filed: 10/19/2009
• Issued: 04/04/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Inventors: Brokken, Dirk, Tijs, Tim Johannes Willem, Janssen, Joris Hendrik
• Primary Examiner(s): Hillery, Nathan
• Application Number:
  US13/124,250
• Publication Number:
  US 20110207100A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,724 Days
• Field of Search: 434236, 463 37
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/011 Emotion or mood input determined on the basis of sensed human body parameters such as pulse, heart rate or beat, temperature of skin, facial expressions, iris, voice pitch, brain activity patterns
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/011 Arrangements for interaction with the human body, e.g. for user immersion in virtual reality blind teaching G09B21/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/015 Input arrangements based on nervous system activity detection, e.g. brain waves [EEG] detection, electromyograms [EMG] detection, electrodermal response detection

Abstract

A method of controlling an influence on a user in a rendering environment includes obtaining signal data representing one or more physiological conditions of a user in response to an influence caused by system feedback of the rendering environment; obtaining data corresponding to a user'"'"'s desired emotional state, which data is based on the user'"'"'s self-reports and data representative of accompanying signal data representing one or more physiological conditions of the user over a last period before the accompanying self-report; determining whether the desired emotional state is reached; and if the state is not reached, adapting the system feedback provided by the rendering environment correspondingly.

Claims

1. A method of controlling influence on a user or a plurality of users by a rendering environment system including a processor and memory, using the processor repeatedly until a desired emotional state of the user is reached, wherein the processor is programed to perform the steps of:

(A) calibrating the processor, including the steps of,

(i) influencing the user in the rendering environment using varying levels of feedback;

(ii) obtaining signal data representing one or more physiological conditions of the user in response to the influence caused by the varying levels of feedback;

(iii) obtaining a user report from the user corresponding to the user'"'"'s desired emotional state;

(iv) saving the signal data and user report obtained by the processor into the memory; and

(v) further influencing the user and predicting if the desired emotional state is reached and comparing the results of the prediction with the user report saved in memory;

wherein, calibrating the processor is complete when the processor correctly predicts the user'"'"'s desired emotional state obtained in a user report a minimum threshold number of times;

(B) controlling a plurality of devices of the rendering environment having configurable settings to render the environment for automatically providing a system feedback;

(C) obtaining signal data by the processor, the signal data comprising one or more physiological conditions of the user responsive to the system feedback during a predetermined period and storing the signal data into the memory;

(D) generating a prediction of the user'"'"'s desired emotional state and, based on that prediction, adapting the configurable settings of the plurality of devices to provide the system feedback in accordance with the obtained emotion data; and

(E) influencing the user in the rendering environment using the configurable settings from the generating step.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising a step of saving the signal data obtained in Step (C) in a database stored in the memory.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein, when the processor predicts the user'"'"'s desired emotional state obtained in a user report below the minimum threshold number of times during the calibrating step, a level of at least one dimension of the feedback is constantly changed.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein, the constantly changed level of at least one dimension of feedback is selected from a scanning sequence database.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more physiological conditions enable inference of a physiological state of the user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the emotion data further comprises thresholds corresponding to switch points at which the user switches between emotional states.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

finding thresholds of the user'"'"'s emotional state by selecting from a range of levels of the system feedback levels corresponding to the desired emotional state; and

keeping the level of the system feedback in a middle of the range of levels.

8. An emotionally adaptive system for controlling an influence on a user or a plurality of users by a rendering environment the system comprising:

at least one feedback device configured to influence the user using varying levels of feedback;

an input/output device configured to obtain signal data representing one or more physiological conditions of the user in response to the influence caused by the varying levels of feedback;

a user input device configured to obtain a user report from the user corresponding to the user'"'"'s desired emotional state; and

a memory unit configured to store the signal data and the user report;

a processor configured to;

(A) perform a calibration of the emotional adaptive system, including

(i) with the at least one feedback device influencing the user in the rendering environment using varying levels of feedback;

(ii) with the input/output device obtaining signal data representing one or more physiological conditions of the user in response to the influence caused by the varying levels of feedback;

(iii) with the user input device obtaining a user report from the user corresponding to the user'"'"'s desired emotional state;

(iv) saving the signal data and user report obtained by the processor into the memory unit; and

(v) further influencing the user and predicting if the desired emotional state is reached and comparing the results of the prediction with the user report saved in memory;

wherein, calibration is complete when the processor correctly predicts the user'"'"'s desired emotional state obtained in a user report a minimum threshold number of times;

(B) controlling the at least one feedback device by adjusting configurable settings to render the environment for automatically providing a system feedback;

(C) obtaining signal data by the input/output device, the signal data comprising one or more physiological conditions of the user responsive to the system feedback during a predetermined period and storing the signal data into the memory unit;

(D) generating a prediction of the user'"'"'s desired emotional state and, based on that prediction, adapting the configurable settings of the plurality of devices to provide the system feedback in accordance with the obtained emotion data; and

(E) influencing the user in the rendering environment using the configurable settings from the generating step.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the one or more physiological conditions enable inference of a physiological state of the user.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the emotion data further comprises thresholds corresponding to switch points at which the user switches between emotional states.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to:

find thresholds of the user'"'"'s emotional state by selecting from a range of levels of the system feedback levels corresponding to the desired emotional state; and

keep the level of the system feedback in a middle of the range of levels.

12. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program for controlling influence on a user or a plurality of users by a rendering environment, the rendering environment including a processor and memory, the computer program causing the processor in a computer to perform:

(A) a calibration of the computer program, including the steps of,

(i) influencing the user in the rendering environment using varying levels of feedback;

(ii) obtaining signal data representing one or more physiological conditions of the user in response to the influence caused by the varying levels of feedback;

(iii) obtaining a user report from the user corresponding to the user'"'"'s desired emotional state;

(iv) saving the signal data and user report obtained by the processor into the memory; and

(v) further influencing the user and predicting if the desired emotional state is reached and comparing the results of the prediction with the user report saved in memory;

wherein, the calibration of the computer program is complete when the processor correctly predicts the user'"'"'s desired emotional state obtained in a user report a minimum threshold number of times;

(B) a controlling step of controlling a plurality of devices of the rendering environment having configurable settings to render the environment for automatically providing a system feedback;

(C) an obtaining step of obtaining signal data by the processor, the signal data comprising one or more physiological conditions of the user responsive to the system feedback during a predetermined period and storing the signal data into memory;

(D) a generating step of generating a prediction of the user'"'"'s desired emotional state and, based on that prediction, adapting the configurable settings of the plurality of devices to provide the system feedback in accordance with the obtained emotion data; and

(E) an influencing step of influencing the user in the rendering environment using the configurable settings from the generating step.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the one or more physiological conditions enable inference of a physiological state of the user.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the emotion data further comprises thresholds corresponding to switch points at which the user switches between emotional states.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the processor is further configured to:

find thresholds of the user'"'"'s emotional state by selecting from a range of levels of the system feedback corresponding to the desired emotional state; and

keep the level of the system feedback in a middle of the range of levels.