TED

Is it the truth or a lie? Kang Lee’s new technology could help you decide

lavende4 — Mon, 16 May 2016 16:51:01 +0000

Is it the truth or a lie? Kang Lee’s new technology could help you decide lavende4 Mon, 05/16/2016 - 12:51

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Kang Lee explains the possible benefits of his hidden emotion-revealing technology. He also cautions there may be important implications which should be considered in the future (OISETube/YouTube)

Lindsey Craig

Author legacy

Lindsey Craig

Topic

Breaking Research

OISE

emotions

Research

Kang Lee

TED

Imagine if a teacher could tell whether students in a classroom were having trouble with a lesson. Or what if there was an easy way to find out if your date really likes you?

Kang Lee, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education’s Jackman Institute of Child Study, has developed a new technology that can answer these questions.

It’s all featured in a TED Talk released May 13 which highlights Lee’s research on lying, specifically in children, and his new hidden emotion-revealing technology.

Lee has been studying the science of lying for more than 20 years.In his TED Talk, which took place in Vancouver in February of this year, he showcases a new summary of his research that continues to demonstrate that not only do children lie, they do so by the age of 2.

His studies also show that kids who lie at an early age tend to be more advanced cognitively.

Importantly, Lee’s TED Talk also sheds light – for the first time – on his new technology which reveals hidden human emotion.

In addition to education and dating, Lee also says the technology can be used to detect anxiety, whether or not a politician is lying, or if someone is responding positively or negatively to a product. The technology works with a video camera found in most cell phones, tablets and computer devices. It is non-invasive, inexpensive and can be used remotely.

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“In terms of lie detection, with this technology, because it can be used remotely, it can also be used covertly, so we could use it at the border or at the police station,” he said.

The technology could also offer benefits related to health care. For example, someone using Skype with an elderly parent could detect his or her heart rate, breathing, stress level and possibly his or her level of pain, or health risks.

Just as potential benefits of the technology quickly add up, Lee also recognizes that revealing hidden emotion could have major implications.

“It could change the way humans interact with each other. We need to have discussion about the ways in which this technology can and should be used in the future,” he said.

The product is not yet available to consumers, but Lee is working with Nuralogix, a Toronto-based startup company, to bring it to market.

Kang Lee featured in the Washington Post: Politicians lie? Actually, we’re all pretty good at it by age 5

Kang Lee’s TEDx Talk at University of Toronto: Little Liars: Insights from Children’s Lies | Kang Lee | TEDxUofT

Professor (and TED speaker) Kang Lee: his new startup will change how we detect emotion

sgupta — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 09:57:40 +0000

Professor (and TED speaker) Kang Lee: his new startup will change how we detect emotion sgupta Thu, 02/18/2016 - 04:57

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(image by Bigstock)

Elizabeth Monier-Williams

Author legacy

Elizabeth Monier-Williams

Topic

Professor Kang Lee of the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) is a global leader in research that is changing the way we detect emotion and behavior such as lying.

Now, his startup Nuralogix is taking that research a step further.

Consumer-facing market research studies require a group of people, a product or service for them to experience, and methodology to collect and analyze their feedback. For companies requesting consumer insight to influence a product’s attributes, packaging or promotion, accurate information can make the difference between success and failure.

The catch? The best market research exercises can’t consistently determine when people lie. Well-intentioned subjects may do so to please the interviewer, lie to omit inconsistent information or genuinely misjudge their deeper physiological and emotional responses.

Thanks to the first commercial application for a new patent-pending process to reveal both visible and hidden facial emotions using blood-flow analysis, developed by Lee, market researchers and their clients are one step closer to acquiring more accurate, reliable data.

Lee is a developmental neuroscientist who studies social cognition and behavior, their underlying cognitive-cultural-neural mechanisms, and the development of social perception, focusing on face processing and deception. His work was recently profiled by CBC News. On Feb. 18, 2016, Lee spoke at TED Vancouver about his research.

The invitation to TED’s global event came on the heels of his successful Tedx U of T talk, “Little Liars: Insights from Children’s Lies.”

“I’ve studied human face processing and deception for over two decades,” says Lee. “To facilitate this research, I worked with my postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Paul Zheng, to develop a new imaging technology that uses a conventional video camera to reveal facial blood flow changes when people are experiencing various hidden emotions, including emotions associated with lying. We call our technology Transdermal Optical Imaging. Although it was originally developed to study face processing and deception, this versatile technology has many, many business applications, including to marketing research.”

“We recommended that Dr. Lee target market researchers in his first commercial offering since accurately pinpointing customer preferences and the buy response is such an essential focus for the consumer electronics and food and beverage industries, among others,” says Joel Liederman, MaRS Innovation’s vice-president, Physical Sciences. “I’d like to recognize Shatha Qaqish from our team and Kurtis Scissons from the University of Toronto for their work in advancing this technology.”

When Lee disclosed his technology to the University of Toronto’s Innovations and Partnerships Office and MaRS Innovation, commercialization staff from both organizations met with him to understand the invention, develop a go-to-market plan, file patents in key markets, and helped to make introductions to experienced management and investors.

One such introduction was to Marzio Pozzuoli, a Canadian technology entrepreneur. Impressed with the technology, Pozzoli partnered with Dr. Lee, MaRS Innovation and the University of Toronto to take the technology to market through NuraLogix™ Corporation.

Visit Nuraglogix.com

“I truly believe this company will usher in a new era in man-machine interaction,” says Pozzuoli, now CEO of NuraLogix. “In the very near future, our technology will enable machines to understand how humans are feeling more accurately than any human being can today.”

MaRS Innovation and ��οstaff also helped Lee to secure a $115,000 NSERC I2I grant to hire a developer and adapt his existing lab configuration for the technology – which was bulky and required an expensive camera, outside lighting and headset – to a more user-friendly laptop version. Doing so has increased the technology’s processing speed 90 per cent and reduced the time required for data analysis by a factor of three.

NuraLogix has also completed two pilot studies in the food and beverages industry with an Ontario-based company that revealed complementary EQ intelligence to the traditional pen and paper questionnaire. In particular, the studies found inconsistencies in subject feedback and expressed opinions about such qualities as after tastes as compared to the data captured by Lee’s technology.

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TedxUofT is back with helicopters, mustard oil and more

sgupta — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 08:10:24 +0000

TedxUofT is back with helicopters, mustard oil and more sgupta Wed, 02/26/2014 - 03:10

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The brief TEDxUofT lectures will also be uploaded to YouTube in addition to the live stream of the conference on March 1 (image by TEDxUofT)

Brianna Goldberg

Author legacy

Brianna Goldberg

TED

Students

Alumni

Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

Second annual student-run conference launches March 1

They are the bright minds behind human-powered helicopters, malaria-treating mustard oil, Olympic-level sports psychology and more at the University of Toronto.

And they're coming together March 1 to launch the second annual tri-campus TEDxUofT event hosted at Isabel Bader Theatre and streaming live online.

“We're excited to inspire the next generation of great thinkers to take on impossible challenges, and look forward to sharing our lessons with the ��οcommunity,” said Engineering alumnus Cameron Robertson.

Robertson is set to speak with his AeroVelo Inc. co-founder Todd Reichert about the experiences that led to their win of the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize for completing the first-ever sustained flight of a human-powered helicopter. (Read more about their first flight)

Though the AeroVelo accomplishment rocked the engineering community worldwide, its founders will leave the shop-talk at the door and instead offer their take on the surprising psychological dimensions of what it means to work towards a major goal.

“We hope to foster greater innovation and creativity by exploring our understanding of, and experience with, failure,” said Robertson.

An acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design, TED began in the early 1990s as an annual conference in California, with strong ties to Silicon Valley. TED events feature brief lectures on a variety of topics and place a strong emphasis on storytelling, hosting talks from presenters such as Stephen Hawking, Elizabeth Gilbert, Malcom Gladwell and others.

As the lectures were made available for free online in 2006-- with many “TED Talks” going viral—TED started granting licenses for independent organizations to host TED-like conferences, known as "TEDx" events. ��οhas hosted a number of successful TEDx events, including the inaugural TEDxUofT last May. (Read about the first TEDxUofT conference)

This year’s speakers include students, alumni and professors such as Vote Compass founder Cliff van der Linden, sports coaching and physiology with Greg Wells, and guitarist Tariq Harb. Research trailblazers and undergraduate Jessie McAlpline, who made international headlines for her work into treating malaria with mustard oil is slated to appear as is Adjunct Professor Lesli Bisgould, Canada’s first animal rights lawyer.

“I'm looking forward to hearing about so many important new ideas and I'm grateful that the time has come that animal rights is considered to be one of them,” said Bisgould, who has acted for individuals and organizations in a variety of animal-related cases in the only practice of its kind in Canada.

“I hope my talk will raise questions in the audience's minds about the exploitative relationship we have with other animals and how we can begin to change it.”

The student-run organizing committee will also provide a live stream of the event starting at 9:40 AM, with viewing parties being hosted on residences of the University of Toronto Scarborough and Mississauga campuses. Like all TEDx events, the talks and performances will later be posted on YouTube.

To stream the event or to learn more, visit www.tedxuoft.com.

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TED

Is it the truth or a lie? Kang Lee’s new technology could help you decide

Read more about Dr. Lee’s emotion-revealing technology, Transdermal Optical Imaging, and startup Nuralogix

Kang Lee featured in the Washington Post: Politicians lie? Actually, we’re all pretty good at it by age 5

Kang Lee’s TEDx Talk at University of Toronto: Little Liars: Insights from Children’s Lies | Kang Lee | TEDxUofT

Professor (and TED speaker) Kang Lee: his new startup will change how we detect emotion

Visit Nuraglogix.com

TedxUofT is back with helicopters, mustard oil and more