Professor Pat Healey has been selected for the visiting professor role - international chair for ‘empirical foundations of linguistics’ - which will see him deliver a series of lectures based on the theme of miscommunication.
EECS Professor of Human Interaction Pat Healey has been selected as one of eight international chairs for ‘empirical foundations of linguistics’, taking up the role in the 2015/16 academic year. The position, associated with the Laboratoire d’excellence (Labex) research collaborative, is located in Paris at the heart of the most active academic community for linguistics. The aim of Labex is to promote innovation and interdisciplinary research within linguistics and related fields.
This is an aim close to Pat’s heart – as Head of our Cognitive Science research group, his research focuses on how computer science provides ways to carry out experiments on human interactions that wouldn’t otherwise be possible (including through use of motion capture technology in video and computerised chat tools). His interests also lie in ways of designing computers and robots to interact in a more ‘human-like’ way.
This has included how we can analyse the social exclusion experienced by mental health patients and how we might design robots capable of making us laugh.
Pat will touch on all these themes in his series of four lectures on: language processing and dialogue; communication and miscommunication; multimodal and multiparty dialogue; and applications and interventions.
“Digital technologies have the potential to transform human interaction - by providing new insights into its mechanisms and by creating new environments for richer and more expressive forms of communication. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to explore these themes with the outstanding research community in Paris, and am looking forward to bringing my experiences back to my work at Queen Mary,” said Pat.
More on some of the work mentioned above: Schizophrenia in the limelight Research paper – Robot Comedy Lab: experimenting with the social dynamics of live performance