Ms Nilma Perera

PhD Student

Email: i.perera2@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au
Phone: +61 3 8344-1516
Fax: +61 3 9349-4596

Office: 4.65C, 111 Barry St, Carlton, 3010, Australia

I am a PhD student within the Interactive Design Group (IDG) of Department of Information Systems and Biomedical Multimedia Unit (BMU) of Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Heath Sciences.

I started off my research looking at Affective Computing (Emotive Interface Agents in particular) framework suggested by Rosalind Picard in 1997. Over the course of my PhD it have evolved to incorporate areas such as academic emotions, learning and flow. The current working title of my PhD is:

"Changing Emotions to Enhance Learning: An affective computing challenge"

The aim of my research is to investigate if utilising emotive interface agents in a learning environment can reduce academic boredom and anxiety induced by learning tasks. I am also interested in knowing if flow can be achieved via manipulating academic boredom and anxiety in a learning environment. My supervisors are Dr. Jon Pearce of Department of Information Systems and Dr. Gregor Kennedy From BMU.