COCOA Project 2023-2025

Gathering around a table, conversing, and sharing food are some of the most widespread, and universal social experiences. The 2-years project COmputational Models of Commensality for artificial Agents (COCOA) founded by Italian Ministry of University and Research aims to investigate human-human interactions in a commensal setting using state-of-the art AI methods as well as to develop artificial commensal companions (e.g., social robots) capable of engaging with human commensals. We will use machine/deep learning and computer vision methods to develop computational models, e.g., for commensal activities’ recognition and social relations analysis. We will also develop artificial commensal companions able to recognize human actions and attitudes, and to maintain engaging interaction with human commensal partners.

You can read more about commensality in our previous papers:

• Computational Commensality: From Theories to Computational Models for Social Food Preparation and Consumption in HCI
• Social robots as eating companions
• Towards Commensal Activities Recognition

Exploring facial expressiveness in movies

The movies present a large and rich source of data to study nonverbal behaviors. The aim of the project is to investigate the expressiveness of actors' facial expressions across various movie genres. Within the project, we explore how people perceive the intensity of facial expressions in still images and videos, and aim to introduce computational methods to automatically assess facial expressiveness. Additionally, we seek to understand the variations in expressiveness among different movie genres. The project is conducted in collaboration with Prof. Emanuele Castanò (University of Trento, CNR) and Marina Tiuleneva.