Rosalind Picard, a professor of media arts and sciences and co-director of Things That Think at MIT, discussed her work using robotic computers and facial mapping technology to help people with autism during a lecture Monday at MSU. Picard’s goal is to help people with autism better understand physical emotional cues in themselves and others.

The research could be used to teach autistic people to eventually recognize facial expressions and use posture cues to gauge emotions and adjust social behavior, said MSU psychology professor and cognitive science director Rose Zacks.

Computer games and prototype glasses also are being developed to help autistic people become more comfortable in social situations. The technology will be a new tool to help make communicating and teaching people with autism easier, said George Stockman, MSU professor of computer science.

People with autism are usually incredibly detail-oriented, Picard said, and the lack of any absolutes when it comes to human emotions makes learning to interpret emotions frustrating. Different social cues, settings and a host of other circumstances has made teaching these cues hard to explain.

“A lot of what ‘typical’ people do is not logical and that can be frustrating,” Picard said.

New developments in emotional intelligence technology offer hope for developing ways to help autistic people understand emotional cues and engage in human interactions they might not otherwise have, she said.