Development of socially interactive and emotionally sensitive artificial intelligence systems using big and thick behavioral and neuroimaging data

Project Intro
A better understanding of how the human brain and mind work can help us design better artificial intelligence (AI) systems and robots, and better AI systems and robots can be applied in research to help gain a better understanding of how the human brain and mind work. For this purpose, the team of the NTU neuroimaging center collaborates with scholars and experts from NTNU to: (1) understand how the brain process social and emotional information using machine/deep learning techniques, and (2) develop a socially interactive and emotionally sensitive chatbot. Specifically, the subproject 1 “fMRI hyperscanning for social interaction research”will build a system to synchronize the three MRI scanners in NTU, NCCU, & NCKU for studying the brain activities during social interaction; the subproject 2 “Investigating embodiment of emotion and cognition using MEG”will use MEG to clarify how bodily states and environmental factors affect cognitive and emotional states in the brain; the subproject 3 “A data sharing and analytics platform for the Imaging Center for Integrated Body, Mind, and Culture Research”will integrate data of the same research participant from different studies to accumulate big and deep/thick data in the neural and behavioral domains; the subproject 4 “Developing a sympathetic and humorous chatbot”will construct a chatbot in Mandawhrin Chinese, which will then be validated by the subprojects 1 & 2 for its humanness in social interaction and effectiveness in reducing human anxity/depression.