In recent years Alzheimer’s disease has been on the rise throughout the world and is rarely diagnosed at an early stage when it can still be effectively controlled. Using artificial intelligence, KTU researchers conducted a study to identify whether human-computer interfaces could be adapted for people with memory impairments to recognise a visible object in front of them.
Rytis Maskeliūnas, a researcher at the Department of Multimedia Engineering at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), considers that the classification of information visible on the face is a daily human function: “While communicating, the face “tells” us the context of the conversation, especially from an emotional point of view, but can we identify visual stimuli based on brain signals?”
The visual processing of the human face is complex. Information such as a person’s identity or emotional state can be perceived by us, analysing the faces. The aim of the study was to analyse a person’s ability to process contextual information from the face and detect how a person responds to it.
Face can indicate the first symptoms of the disease
According to Maskeliūnas, many studies demonstrate that brain diseases can potentially be analysed by examining facial muscle and eye movements since degenerative brain disorders affect not only memory and cognitive functions, but also the cranial nervous system associated with the above facial (especially eye) movements.
Dovilė Komolovaitė, a graduate of KTU Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, who co-authored the study, shared that the research has clarified whether a patient with Alzheimer’s disease visually processes visible faces in the brain in the same way as individuals without the disease.
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