A Rumor of Empathy at Affectiva Software
April 8, 2015
Hosted by Lou Agosta
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Join Lou Agosta for a conversation with Dan McDuff (http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~djmcduff), Principal Scientist at Affectiva (www.affectiva.com), a software company that is transforming our understanding of the expression of emotions in the human face. The human face is an emotional “hot spot”. New-born babies seem to gravitate spontaneously towards the face of the caretaker. The face forms a total configuration that manifests a person’s humanity in a way especially engaging to another person. We humans seem to be hard-wired to interact with faces as the location for emotional expression – and the lack of expression. Innovations in machine vision and pattern recognition are advancing the automated understanding of the expression of human emotions. Affectiva was founded in 2009 by Rana el Kaliouby and Rosalind W. Picard, scientists at the MIT Media Lab. Listeners will have an opportunity to phone in with questions for Dan and Lou about understanding the emotions.
A Rumor of Empathy
Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Empowerment Channel
A Rumor of Empathy is committed to providing a gracious and generous listening, empathy, in conversation with its guests and listeners. Join the host in chasing down and confirming or debunking an unsubstantiated report of empathy in the community and engaging in an on the air conversation in transforming human struggle and suffering into meaningful relationships, satisfying results and contribution to the community. When one is really listened to empathically and heard in one’s struggle and effort, then something shifts. Possibilities open up that were hidden in plain view. Action that makes a difference occurs so that empathy becomes less of a rumor and an expanded reality in your life and in the community. When all the philosophical arguments and psychological back-and-forth are over and done, in empathy, one is quite simply in the presence of another human being. Join Lou for an empowering conversation in which empathy is made present.
Lou Agosta
Lou Agosta’s commitment is to provide a gracious and generous listening empathy, in conversation with his guests on the show and the empathy consulting and psychotherapy work he performs with individual and corporate clients. Graduating as an unemployed philosopher from the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. on Empathy and Interpretation, Lou trained in data management technology and consulted in technology with Blue Cross of Illinois, Greenbrier and Russel, Giga Information Group, and IBM before realizing that the world does not need more data, the world needs expanded empathy. After undergoing over ten years of psychoanalyses, dynamic psychotherapy, and related training to recover from childhood and adolescent traumas, Lou teaches empathy in the history and systems of psychology at Argosy University. He is the author of three books on empathy from Palgrave Macmillan including A Rumor of Empathy: Resistance, Narrative, and Recovery, forthcoming from Routledge. Lou says that when all the philosophical arguments and psychological labels are over and done, in empathy, a person is quite simply in the presence of another human being. Join Lou and be present for an empowering conversation in which empathy is made present and makes a difference.
