The project investigates the core features of human interactions to model cognitive and emotional processes: a critical brick in building technologies for sustainable and all-inclusive societies. The aim is to design and implement autonomous systems and algorithms able to detect early signs of mood changes and depressions through analyses of interactional exchanges. The project will gather behavioural data (speech, handwriting, facial, vocal and gestural expressions) from healthy/depressed diagnosed subjects defining behavioural tasks able to detect changes in the healthy perception of social cues due to depressive disorders. Specific scenarios will be designed to assess individuals’ empathic and social competencies. The collected data will deepen the medical knowledge on behavioural features affecting healthy/depressed interactional exchanges and will allow developing a multi-dimensional mathematical model of communicative features assessing psychologically and quantitatively healthy/depressed relationships. From this model, automated and cost-effective technological interventions will be implemented, to be used in health care centers for the early detection of depressive disorders.

Status: Ongoing project

Start date: 11 December 2019

End date: 10 December 2021 (10 June 2022)

Funded under: V:ALERE 2019, D.R. 906  4/10/2019, prot. n. 157264 del 17/10/2019