Emotional intelligence

UMass Amherst researchers are developing interactive computerised tutors that sense a student’s emotional and motivational state of mind while teaching them geometry and algebra.

Special sensors are used to help make the computer tutor respond when students become angry, frustrated or bored, based on body language, attention and other indicators.

Beverly Woolf, a research associate professor of computer science, said the introduction of the emotion sensors helps the scientists respond to how people actually learn.

'If you improve the social intelligence of the computer, students respond the way they would to another person. Sensors allow the computer to identify students who pay attention and those too tired or bored to learn. Using these cues, the computer provides individualised instruction,' Woolf said.

Woolf is part of a team of scientists that includes research scientist Ivon M. Arroyo, computer science professor Andrew Barto and Winslow Burleson from Arizona State University. The tutors they have designed teach geometry and algebra to high school students, but can be adapted to any subject.