This year at SPSP, I had the opportunity catch up with old friends, meet new ones, and see/hear about cutting edge research. In particular, a project out of the Disney Research Lab caught my eye.  The project examined what types of pronouns people associate with basic shapes (i.e., circle, square, and triangle). Their findings show that people use masculine pronouns, such as he, to describe a square or triangle whereas people use feminine pronouns, such as she, to describe a circle. On the surface its a very simple study. But, when I asked about the big picture they explained that these types of studies are used to help design robots. The future of robots is here and I am excited to see more from this research group. 

Here are a couple of photos from the conference.

Yitai Seih and I presenting our selfie research. Want to know more, feel free to contact either of us! 

Me, presenting research of Food.

Lab Meetup