Article archive / June 1, 2015
Originally published: . Volume 6, No. 6. Source pages: 14.
LSU professor and clinical psychologist, Dr. Alex Cohen was featured in the recent issue of Kaleidoscope, for his pioneering research in the assessment of psychiatric patients.
The article, titled “Code Cracker,” looked at Cohen’s research for applications of technologies in developing more rapid and accurate methods of assessment. He told the reporter, “We’ve used the same clinical reporting methods for decades – one- on-one interviews with patients–and they’re very subjective.”
“We are working on automated and objective measures of natural behavior that would make patient assessment faster, cheaper and much more meaningful.”
The author noted that many of the methods clinicians use currently are either fairly poor at determining high costs and dangerous events like suicide and homicide. Cohen and his students are working on technologies that record language patterns in psychiatric patients and compare these to others, developing models for quick and accurate prediction.
Last year Dr. Cohen was part of an international team awarded a$1.3 million dollar grant from the Norway Research Council for Cohen’s work using machine learning approaches. Cohen will be developing applications to look at patient’s speech, compare to normal, and alert staff to any concerns.
Dr. Cohen’s research is conducted in his Affective Science and Psychology and Pathology Lab at LSU where he works with six graduate students and 20 undergraduates, said Kaleidoscope. The group is looking at speech pace, coherence of speech, key expressions, and subtle changes that otherwise would hard for a clinician to notice.
Cohen said, “We really need innovative technology-based solutions.”
Dr. Alex Cohen, LSU professor and clinical psychologist at his desk. He was recently featured in the LSU magazine, Kaleidoscope.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.