[iva] PhD position. Emotion Recognition in Dementia

[d.k.j.heylen at utwente.nl]

PHD POSITION (4 YEARS)
EMOTION RECOGNITION IN DEMENTIA: ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY FOR MULTIMODAL
ANALYSIS OF EMOTION EXPRESSION IN EVERYDAY LIFE
https://www.utwente.nl/organisatie/werken-bij-de-ut/vacatures/!/vacature/948904

The department Psychology, Health and Technology (PHT) is involved with research and
education in the use of technologies to support health and wellbeing. We develop and
implement theory-based interventions to influence behaviors, using persuasive technologies
(web-based, mobile, gaming etc.). We work both from a psychology and an engineering
perspective and cooperate with other scientific disciplines, based on the "high tech, human
touch" profile of the University of Twente.

Research of PHT is carried out in the Centre for
eHealth Research and Wellbeing, embedded in the Institute of Government Studies (IGS) at
the University of Twente. The Storylab is a one of the Centre's four labs, specialized in
technology-enhanced narrative research in the area of health and well-being, and pioneering
in affect mining and machine learning approaches. It combines a scientific orientation to the
international research community with a practice-based focus evidenced by collaborations
with local organizations. In this project, the Story Lab collaborates with the Centre for
Telematics and Information Technology of the University of Twente (CTIT-UT), the University
Network for Elderly Care of the University Medical Centre Groningen (UNO-UMCG) and the
Netherlands eScience (NLeSC; a joint initiative of the Dutch national research council (NWO)
and the Dutch organization for ICT in education and research (SURF)).

JOB DESCRIPTION
Emotional expression plays a crucial role in everyday functioning. It is a continuous process
involving many features of behavioral, facial, vocal, and verbal modalities. Given this
complexity, few psychological studies have addressed emotion recognition in an everyday
context. Recent technological innovations in affective computing could result in a scientific
breakthrough as they open up new possibilities for the ecological assessment of emotions.
However, existing technologies still pose major challenges in the field of Big Data Analytics.
Little is known about how these lab-based technologies generalize to real world problems.
Rather than a one-size-fits-all solution, existing tools need to be adapted to specific user
groups in more natural settings. They also need to take large individual differences into
account. We take up these challenges by studying emotional expression in dementia. In this
context, emotional functioning is strongly at risk, yet highly important to maintain quality of
life in person-centered care. Our goal is to gain a better understanding of how dementia
affects emotion expression. We carry out a pilot study, a comparative study between
Alzheimer patients and matched healthy older adults, as well as a longitudinal study on the
development of emotion expression in Alzheimer patients across time. We develop a unique
corpus, use state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to advance technologies for
multimodal emotion recognition, and develop visualization and statistical models to assess
multimodal patterns of emotion expression. We test their usability in a workshop for
international researchers and make them available through the eScience Technology
Platform.

YOUR PROFILE
You will cooperate in an interdisciplinary team, consisting of experts in psychology,
dementia, social signal processing, automatic behavioral analysis, visualization, and big data
analytics. You are responsible for the recruitment of participants, the collection of the data,
data analysis and tool development.

• You hold a MSc/MA degree in psychology or computer sciences, with a clear
multidisciplinary interest in psychology and technology;
• You have skills in machine learning and automatic classification;
• You have skills in advanced statistical modelling;
• You preferably have skills in technological tools for affect mining;
• You have an interest in persons with dementia as the target group of the research.
• You are keen to work in a multi-disciplinary team and have the ability to communicate
across disciplines, or clear interest in developing this ability.
• You are motivated, ambitious, with excellent analytical skills and a talent for precision.
• You have a strong command of the Dutch and English language, both verbal and written.
• You have excellent social, communication and organizational skills.
• In case you have published one or more peer-reviewed scientific articles, this will be
considered an advantage.

Because of the variety of skills and disciplines required for this position, we do not expect
candidates to be already fully equipped in all areas as developing these skills is part of the
PhD process. Therefore, assessments might be part of the job application procedure to
determine relevant competences and potential.
Information and application For more information, please contact Prof. Dr. Gerben
Westerhof (e-mail: g.j.westerhof at utwente.nl<mailto:g.j.westerhof at utwente.nl>), tel. +31-(0)53-4896074. Your application
should include a CV, a letter of application with a research statement indicating your
background and interest, and contact information for at least two references.

The application deadline is 12 March 2017. Interviews will be held mid and/or end March 2017.
Applications should be uploaded via www.utwente.nl/vacatures/en<http://www.utwente.nl/vacatures/en>).

OUR OFFER
We offer you a four-year full-time PhD position. You are expected to finish the project with a
PhD thesis and disseminate the results through publications in peer-reviewed journals, and
presentations at (inter)national conferences. Your main responsibility will be to carry out
research, and you will be given the opportunity to acquire teaching experience as well. In
accordance with the Dutch Collective Labour Agreement for Universities, the monthly salary
starts at € 2.191 gross per month in the first year, leading up to € 2.801 gross per month in
the last year. Employees are also entitled to a holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual
salary and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus. We offer excellent auxiliary terms of employment,
such as professional and personal development programs; a secondary remuneration
package; a dynamic environment with enthusiastic colleagues; an organization focusing on
internationalization and a high degree of responsibility and independence.

The anticipated start date is 1th of May, 2017.

THE ORGANISATION
The University of Twente. We stand for science and technology, high tech, human touch,
education and research that matter. New technology which drives change, innovation and
progress in society. The University of Twente is the only campus university in the
Netherlands; divided over five faculties we provide more than fifty educational programs.
The University of Twente has a strong focus on personal development and talented
researchers are given scope for carrying out pioneering research. The Faculty of Behavioural,
Management and Social Sciences strives to hold a leading position in their fields in relation
to the science and technology research programs of the University of Twente. In all these
fields, the faculty provides bachelor, master and professional development programs.
Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social sciences
The Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social sciences (BMS) strives to play a pivotal
role in understanding, co-engineering and evaluating innovation in society. Innovation is
driven by advances in technology. Through 'social engineering' these technological advances
are embedded in society befitting human needs and behaviour, within proper public and
private management and business structures. For this the faculty of BMS upholds high
quality disciplinary knowledge in psychology, business administration, public administration,
communication science, philosophy, educational science and health sciences. All with a
focus on the challenges in society. Research is strongly connected to our Institutes on
Governance (IGS), ICT (CTIT), Health (MIRA) and Nanotechnology (MESA+).
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