Now My Kinect Can Tell Me If I’m Depressed With 90% Accuracy

Kincet may not still be the end-all must have device in the living room for the gamer set but it is still being used for something much more interesting.

Since the release of the SDK, Kinect has been the center of some killer applications far beyond gaming. Here is another one of those applications, SimSensei, and one I would never have guessed would be possible.

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Computer scientists at the University of Southern California have used Microsoft’s Kinect sensor to detect, with 90% accuracy, whether you are depressed. All you have to do is sit down in front of Kinect, answer some questions from an on-screen virtual psychologist, and the clever software does the rest. The process is entirely automated, objective, and self-contained, meaning accurate testing could be carried out in complete privacy at home.

The software, called SimSensei and developed by Stefan Scherer and colleagues, is essentially a clever mix of computer vision algorithms and the psychological model of depression. The on-screen psychologist asks you leading questions — a lot like the old-school Eliza, or Alice — and then watches how you physically respond. Using Kinect, the computer vision algorithms build up a very detailed model of your face and body, including your “smile level,” horizontal gaze and vertical gaze, how wide open your eyes are, and whether you are leaning toward or away from the camera. From these markers, SimSensei can work out whether you’re exhibiting signs that indicate depression — gaze aversion, smiling less, and fidgeting.