Cognitive Lights

Humans form bonds with everything around them. It may not always be a strong emotional bond but we do have a tendency to get attached to even non-living objects. Cognitive Lights explores how interactive lighting can bring about a warm feeling of presence. It aims to study the point at which a human machine relationship can have an emotional link and what amount of cognition should the machine exert in order for this to happen.

Lights have been a integral part of human society for years. Apart from technological advancements, they have remained largely the same and built for one purpose - illumination. But at the same time, we tend to perceive light changes the most. It is for this reason interactive lights was chosen for this project.

Current characteristics exhibited by Cognitive Light is the ability to detect presence in the room and pop on (with a slight animation) when a person walks in. They fade out over a period of 2 minutes if you don't give them attention. They can be spoken to and will change color and brightness based on the way you talk, responding in a corresponding fashion the moment you stop talking, similar to a conversation with a person. At times they also exhibit random "breathing" at times to catch your attention.

Further work in being done on improving the concept beyond just lights, adding audio (not speech) and fine tuning the aggregation of sensor readings.