Category Archives: hci

Graduate assistantship at the UNH HCI Lab

The University of New Hampshire HCI Lab is offering a fully-funded PhD position in Electrical and Computer Engineering, starting in the fall of 2019 (or as early as summer 2019).

The successful candidate will work under the supervision of Prof. Andrew Kun, conducting research at the intersection of in-vehicle user interfaces for automated vehicles, speech interaction, augmenter reality, and tangible interfaces. The interfaces to be developed will enable people to engage in work-related activities while the vehicle is under the control of automation. They will also ensure that the human user can safely return to driving when needed.

This research is an NSF-funded, four-year multidisciplinary collaboration between five institutions: UNH, Harvard University, the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin, and Wellesley College. The successful candidate will be part of a multidisciplinary team of engineers, computer scientists, human-factors researchers, and economists, that will span these five institutions.

We are looking forward to applications from students who have the following qualifications:

  • BS or MS in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, HCI, or a similar field
  • Solid computer programming skills
  • Experience, or strong interest, in one or more of the following: in-vehicle interfaces, speech interfaces, augmented reality, and tangible interfaces
  • Strong oral and written English communication skills
  • Ability to function on multidisciplinary teams

We encourage students from groups that are underrepresented in STEM fields to apply.

Financial support:
A PhD student in good standing will receive a tuition waiver, health insurance, and a stipend (both during the 9-month academic year and during the summer). The stipend is intended to cover living expenses. the student will serve as a research assistant or teaching assistant.

UNH HCI Lab:
The UNH HCI Lab is part of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of New Hampshire, Durham campus. Lab members conduct research on HCI topics related to driving, cognitive load, speech interfaces, augmented reality, interactions with large multi-touch devices, and usable security.

To apply:
Please contact Prof. Andrew Kun with any questions regarding the research topic and the specifics of the position. Potential applicants should review the UNH ECE PhD program guidelines, and the UNH Graduate School application instructions. Applications for the fall of 2019 received by February 1, 2019 will receive full consideration. Applications received after this deadline will be considered if funding is available.

Coming up: CHI 2016 course on automotive user interfaces

At this year’s CHI conference Bastian Pfleging, Nora Broy and I will present a course introducing automotive user interfaces. Here’s the course abstract:

The objective of this course is to provide newcomers to Automotive User Interfaces with an introduction and overview of the field. The course will introduce the specifics and challenges of In-Vehicle User Interfaces that set this field apart from others. We will provide an overview of the specific requirements of AutomotiveUI, discuss the design of such interfaces, also with regard to standards and guidelines. We further outline how to evaluate interfaces in the car, discuss the challenges with upcoming automated driving and present trends and challenges in this domain.

Interested? Please register through the conference registration system and sign up for our course.

UNH IRES: HCI summer student research experience in Germany

HCI Lab, Stuttgart

UNH ECE professor Tom Miller and I were recently awarded an NSF International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) grant. Our IRES grant will fund students conducting research at the University of Stuttgart in Germany.

Albrecht Schmidt

Under our NSF IRES grant, each summer between 2014 and 2017, three undergraduate and three graduate students  will conduct research for just under 9 weeks at the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Lab of Professor Albrecht Schmidt at the University of Stuttgart. Professor Schmidt and his lab are among the world leaders in the field of HCI.

Student research will focus on two areas: in-vehicle speech interaction and speech interaction with public displays. For in-vehicle speech, students will relate the benefits and limitations of speech interaction with in-vehicle devices with real-world parameters, such as how well speech recognition works at any given moment. They will also work to identify why it is that talking to a passenger appears to reduce the probability of a crash, and how we might be able to use this new information to create safer in-vehicle speech interactions. Similarly, students will explore how speech interaction can allow smooth interaction with electronic public displays.

Stuttgart Palace Square (Stefan Fussan: https://www.flickr.com/photos/derfussi/)

Successful applicants will receive full financial support for participation, covering items such as airfare, room and board, health insurance, as well as a $500/week stipend. The total value of the financial package is approximately $8,500 for 9 weeks.

Details about the program, including applications instructions, are available here. Please note that this program is only available to US citizens and permanent residents. If you have questions please contact Andrew Kun (andrew dot kun at unh dot edu) or Tom Miller (tom dot miller at unh dot edu).

2014 visit to University College London

Last week I travelled to London to give a talk at University College London (UCL). My host was Duncan Brumby, who also recently visited us at UNH. My talk introduced our work on in-vehicle human-computer interaction, touching on subjects from Project54 to driving simulator-based experiments.

It was great to talk to Duncan again, and it was really nice to meet some of his colleagues, including Anna Cox, Paul Marshall, and Sandy Gould. Thanks to all for hosting me.

While my trip was brief, I did get a chance to also visit the British Museum. This is one of my favorite places in the world, and here’s a photo of my favorite artifact from the museum’s vast collection, the Rosetta Stone:

You can see more pictures from my trip on Flickr.

 

 

 

First lecture in BME autonomous robots and vehicles lab

Today was my first lecture in BME‘s Autonomous Robots and Vehicles Lab (Autonóm robotok és járművek laboratórium). This lab is lead by Bálint Kiss, who is my host during my Fulbright scholarship at in Hungary.

Today’s lecture covered the use of eye trackers in designing human-computer interaction. I talked about our work on in-vehicle human-computer interaction, and drew parallels to human-robot interaction. Tomorrow I’ll introduce the class to our Seeing Machines eye tracker, and in the coming weeks I’ll run a number of lab sections in which the students will conduct short experiments in eye tracking and pupil diameter measurement.

If you speak Hungarian, here’s the overview of today’s lecture (I’m thrilled to be teaching in Hungarian):

Szemkövetők használata az ember-gép interakció értékelésében

A University of New Hampshire kutatói több mint egy évtizede foglalkoznak a járműveken belüli ember-gép interfészekkel. Ez az előadás először egy rövid áttekintést nyújt a rendőr járművekre tervezett Project54 rendszer fejlesztéséről és telepítéséről. A rendszer különböző modalitású felhasználói felületeket biztosít, beleértve a beszéd modalitást. A továbbiakban az előadás beszámol közelmúltban végzett autóvezetés-szimulációs kísérletekről, amelyekben a szimulátor és egy szemkövető adatai alapján becsültük a vezető kognitív terhelését, vezetési teljesítményét, és vizuális figyelmét a külső világra.

Az előadás által a hallgatók betekintést nyernek a szemkövetők használatába az ember-gép interakció értékelésében és tervezésében. Az ember-gép interakció pedig egy központi probléma az autonóm robotok sikeres telepítésében, hiszen az autonóm robotokat nem csak szakértők fogják használni. Ellenkezőleg, ezek a robotok a társadalom minden részében felhasználókra találnak majd. A robotok ilyen széleskörű telepítése csak akkor lehet sikeres, ha az ember-gép interakció elfogadható a felhasználók számára.

Visiting Noble High School

This morning I discussed distracted driving research with students at Noble High School in North Berwick, ME. I was there at the invitation of David Parker who teaches physics. This year David and his students are exploring vehicle safety as part of their introduction to various aspects of physics.

Every time I talk to pre-college students, I want to communicate the idea that scientific research is exciting. With David’s students this was easy. From the beginning of my visit they were engaged in our conversation and they displayed critical thinking skills. I am sure this is gratifying for David and his Noble High School colleagues – their efforts are paying off.

Announced: Cognitive load and in-vehicle HMI special interest session at the 2012 ITS World Congress

Continuing the work of the 2011 Cognitive Load and In-vehicle Human-Machine Interaction workshop at AutomotiveUI 2011, Peter Fröhlich and I are co-organizing a special interest session on this topic at this year’s ITS World Congress.

The session will be held on Friday, October 26, 2012. Peter and I were able to secure the participation of an impressive list of panelists. They are (in alphabetical order):

  • Corinne Brusque, Director, IFSTTAR LESCOT, France
  • Johan Engström, senior project manager, Volvo Technology, Sweden
  • James Foley, Senior Principal Engineer, CSRC, Toyota, USA
  • Chris Monk, Project Officer, US DOT
  • Kazumoto Morita, Senior Researcher, National Safety and Environment Laboratory, Japan
  • Scott Pennock, Chairman of the ITU-T Focus Group on Driver Distraction and Senior Hands-Free Standards Specialist at QNX, Canada

The session will be moderated by Peter Fröhlich. We hope that the session will provide a compressed update on the state-of-the-art in cognitive load research, and that it will serve as inspiration for future work in this field.

Award of Excellence at 2012 Undergraduate Research Conference

Two of my undergraduate research assistants, Josh Clairmont and Shawn Bryan, won an Award of Excellence at the 2012 Undergraduate Research Conference. The URC is UNH’s annual event aimed at engaging undergraduate students in research.

Josh and Shawn created a tangible user interface for the Microsoft Surface multitouch table.  Their interface allows users to play a game of air hockey on the Surface. Josh, a computer engineering senior, was in charge of creating the Arduino-based game controller. Shawn, a computer science senior, created the game on the Surface.

Here is a video introducing the work of Josh and Shawn:

Congratulations Josh and Shawn!

2012 PhD and MS positions

A PhD and an MS position are available in the Project54 lab at the University of New Hampshire. The lab is part of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at UNH. Successful applicants will explore human-computer interaction in vehicles. We are looking for students with a background in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, or related fields.

The Project54 lab was created in 1999 in partnership with the New Hampshire Department of Safety to improve technology for New Hampshire law enforcement. Project54’s in-car system integrates electronic devices in police cruisers into a single voice-activated system. Project54 also integrates cruisers into agency-wide communication networks. The Project54 system has been deployed in over 1000 vehicles in New Hampshire in over 180 state and local law enforcement agencies.

Research focus

Both the PhD and the MS student will focus on the relationship between various in-car user interface characteristics and the cognitive load of interacting with these interfaces, with the goal of designing interfaces that do not significantly increase driver workload. Work will involve developing techniques to estimate cognitive load using performance measures (such as the variance of lane position), physiological measures (such as changes in pupil diameter [1-5]) and subjective measures (such as the NASA-TLX questionnaire).

The PhD student will focus on spoken in-vehicle human-computer interaction, and will explore the use of human-human dialogue behavior [6-11] to guide the design process.

The work will utilize experiments in Project54’s world-class driving simulator laboratory which is equipped with two research driving simulators, three eye trackers and a physiological data logger.

Appointment

The PhD student will be appointed for four years, and the MS student for two years. Initial appointments will be for one year, starting between June and September 2012. Continuation of funding will be dependent on satisfactory performance. Appointments will be a combination of research and teaching assistantships. Compensation will include tuition, fees, health insurance and academic year and summer stipend.

How to apply

For application instructions, and for general information, email Andrew Kun, Project54 Principal Investigator at andrew.kun@unh.edu. Please attach a current CV.

References

[1] Oskar Palinko, Andrew L. Kun, “Exploring the Effects of Visual Cognitive Load and Illumination on Pupil Diameter in Driving Simulators,” ETRA 2012

[2] Andrew L. Kun, Zeljko Medenica, Oskar Palinko, Peter A. Heeman, “Utilizing Pupil Diameter to Estimate Cognitive Load Changes During Human Dialogue: A Preliminary Study,” AutomotiveUI 2011 Adjunct Proceedings

[3] Andrew L. Kun, Peter A. Heeman, Tim Paek, W. Thomas Miller, III, Paul A. Green, Ivan Tashev, Peter Froehlich, Bryan Reimer, Shamsi Iqbal, Dagmar Kern, “Cognitive Load and In-Vehicle Human-Machine Interaction,” AutomotiveUI 2011 Adjunct Proceedings

[4] Oskar Palinko, Andrew L. Kun, “Exploring the Influence of Light and Cognitive Load on Pupil Diameter in Driving Simulator Studies,” Driving Assessment 2011

[5] Oskar Palinko, Andrew L. Kun, Alexander Shyrokov, Peter Heeman, “Estimating Cognitive Load Using Remote Eye Tracking in a Driving Simulator,” ETRA 2010

[6] Andrew L. Kun, Alexander Shyrokov, and Peter A. Heeman, “Interactions between Human-Human Multi-Threaded Dialogues and Driving,” PUC Online First, to appear in PUC

[7] Andrew L. Kun, Zeljko Medenica, “Video Call, or Not, that is the Question,” to appear in CHI ’12 Extended Abstracts

[8] Fan Yang, Peter A. Heeman, Andrew L. Kun, “An Investigation of Interruptions and Resumptions in Multi-Tasking Dialogues,” Computational Linguistics, 37, 1

[9] Andrew L. Kun, Alexander Shyrokov, Peter A. Heeman, “Spoken Tasks for Human-Human Experiments: Towards In-Car Speech User Interfaces for Multi-Threaded Dialogue,” Automotive UI 2010

[10] Fan Yang, Peter A. Heeman, Andrew L. Kun, “Switching to Real-Time Tasks in Multi-Tasking Dialogue,” Coling 2008

[11] Alexander Shyrokov, Andrew L. Kun, Peter Heeman, “Experimental modeling of human-human multi-threaded dialogues in the presence of a manual-visual task,” SigDial 2007