Christian Werner Becker-Asano

Christian Werner Becker-Asano
Dr. rer. nat. Christian Werner Becker-Asano

(formerly Becker)

Christian Becker-Asano received his doctor's degree (Dr. rer. nat.) from the University of Bielefeld in 2008, for his work on affect simulation for agents with believable interactivity (WASABI architecture), which he applied to the articulated communicator Max.

He was a Ph.D. student and research assistant in the Artificial Intelligence Group at the University of Bielefeld, Faculty of Technology and a Pre-Doctoral Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) during a three month visit in 2005 at the National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo (see also "Videos" below).

In his current research, he applies his experience in Affective Computing to the humanoid robots and androids of the Intelligent Robotics and Communication Labs at ATR in Kyoto, Japan, under the guidance of Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro as a post-doctoral fellow of JSPS and Alexander von Humboldt foundation.

News (aka my slow version of Twitter):

  • 07/2010: Will start to work in Prof. Nebel's research group at University of Freiburg for (at least) one year thanks to a return fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt-foundation.
  • 06/2010: The WASABI architecture is introduced in the first edition of the CITEC Newsletter 1/2010 of my hometown University in Bielefeld!
  • 05/2010: Please participate in this online survey about facial expressions of Geminoid F!

Jump to: Contact infos - Videos - Miscellaneous

Research interests:

I) Affective Computing & Virtual Humans:

Simulation and recognition of affect based on multidisciplinary research to increase the believability of agents in social interaction and to support theory construction.

  • C. Becker-Asano, 2008, "WASABI: Affect Simulation for Agents with Believable Interactivity", PhD thesis, Faculty of Technology, University of Bielefeld (IOS Press (DISKI 319)) [pdf]
  • C. Becker-Asano & I. Wachsmuth (2010), "Affective computing with primary and secondary emotions in a virtual human", Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 20(1), pp. 32-49 [DOI] [pdf]

Click here for some videos.

II) Social Robotics & Android Science:

Increasing the effectiveness of humanoid robots in real world applications by combining psychological and neurobiological findings in implementations of humanoid and android robots.

  • C. Becker-Asano & H. Ishiguro (2009), "Laughter in Social Robotics – no laughing matter", 8th international workshop on Social Intelligence Design, Kyoto [pdf]
  • C. Becker-Asano, T. Kanda, C. Ishi & H. Ishiguro (2009), "How about laughter? Perceived naturalness of two laughing humanoid robots ", Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction, Amsterdam, pp. 49-54 [pdf]
  • C. Becker-Asano, S. Nishio, K. Ogawa, ;amp; H. Ishiguro (2010), "Exploring the Uncanny Valley with Geminoid HI-1 in a real-world application", IADIS Intl. Conf. on Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction, Freiburg, (accepted)

Click here for some videos.

Curriculum Vitae:

Click here please!

Publications:

Click here please!

Invited talks and presentations:

- C. Becker-Asano, special lecture:
Affective Computing
In: Interdisciplinary College 2010 , Heinrich-Luebke-Haus, Günne am Möhnesee, Germany, March 2010.
Official Website
- C. Becker-Asano, invited talk:
Socially interactive humanoids and androids
In: Kolloquium, TU Munich, Faculty of Informatics, Munich, Germany, February 2010.
Official Website
- C. Becker-Asano, invited talk:
Socially interactive humanoids and androids
In: Kolloquium, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Faculty of Engineering, Freiburg, Germany, February 2010.
Official Website
- C. Becker-Asano, invited talk:
Laughter in social robotics with humanoids and androids
In: SFB-Kolloquium (SFB/TR 62), Ulm University, Ulm, Germany, August 2009.
Official Website - Slides (pdf)
- C. Becker-Asano, invited talk:
Wo Wissenschaft & Fiktion sich treffen: Über Forschung mit humanoiden Robotern im Land der aufgehenden Sonne
In: Studien- und Berufsorientierung an den Friedrich-von Bodelschwingh-Schulen in Bethel, Gymnasium Bethel, Bielefeld, Germany, August 2009.
Official Website - Slides (pdf)
- C. Becker-Asano, invited talk:
Laughter in Interaction with Humanoids and Androids
In: CoR-Lab seminar, Research Institute for Cognition and Robotics - CoR-Lab, Bielefeld, Germany, March 2009.
Official Website
- C. Becker-Asano, invited talk:
Emotions & Laughter for Robots and Androids
In: JSPS's Science Dialogue Program, Kakogawa Higashi High School, Hyogo prefecture, Japan, January 2009.
Official Website - Slides (pdf)
- C. Becker-Asano, invited talk:
Simulating affective processes for autonomous agents: the WASABI architecture
In: Cognitive Neuropsychiatry and Affective Neuroscience seminar, Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Japan, January 2009.
Official Website - Slides (pdf)
- C. Becker, invited talk:
Emotion Simulation for a Virtual Human: Implementing the "As-If" Body-Loop in a Cognitive Architecture
In: Seminar on Virtual Agents, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan, April 2007.
Official Website - Slides (pdf)
- C. Becker, presentation:
Emotion modeling for social robots
In: How to build Social Robots, Faculty of Technology, Bielefeld, Germany, November 2006.
Official Website - Slides (pdf)

Videos:

I)

Affective Computing & Virtual Humans (@Bielefeld University):
-

"WASABI Affect Simulation for Agents with Believable Interactivity", June 2008, 3:27 minutes: WASABI_MaxInCave_Page.avi (35,5 MB)
- "Empathic Max in Tokyo", May 2005, 1:40 minutes: JapanMax_02.wmv (16 MB, Windows Media Video) - JapanMax_02_variable.avi (5.6 MB, PocketPC AVI, XVid-Codec) - JapanMax_02.mpg (50 MB, mpg2)
- "Emotion Dynamics of the HNF-Max", June 2004, 2:59 minutes: ADS04_Demo_engl_mpg1_gross.mpg (47 MB, mpg1-Video)
- "Technology that understands", a promotional video produced by the German Research Foundation presenting the Excellence Initiative at Bielefeld University. Watch out for agent Max and its emotions!
II)

Social Robots & Androids (@ATR in Kyoto, Japan):
-

"Robovie Survey", twelve different types of laughter: Which fits best? (see here for some results)

 
Female laughter for Robovie II and Robovie R2
Male laughter for Robovie II and Robovie R2
- "A laughing Geminoid HI-1", December 2009: the android Geminoid HI-1 laughing during the Ultimatum Game. How does she feel about Geminoid?
 
- "Geminoid HI-1 @ ARS Electronica", September 2009: Geminoid during the ARS Electronica exhibition in Linz. I controlled it and had fun with the visitors! (We also used this setup for research, of course..)
 

Miscellaneous:

- "Learning Japanese", an online vocabulary trainer
- "Pictures of Japan", 2005, a nice collection of everyday Tokyo
- "Pictures of Beijing ", 2005, during my visit to ACII2005
- "My music! ", Some early compositions
- "My old homepage cwbecker.de", which can be found here now: cwbecker.becker-asano.de
Where are my visitors from?
Locations of visitors to this page

Internal:

- "Secure data" with passwort protection click here

Contact:

Current address: 
Christian Becker-Asano
ATR (IRC)
2-2-2 Hikaridai, Keihanna Science City, 
Kyoto, Japan, 619-0288
Current email:

christian @ becker-asano dot de

Notice: Email address is modified.

GnuPG public key (as of 21st of July 2009):

Christian Becker-Asano's public key block

Christian Werner Becker-Asano, 06/27/2010