Tina Fey Moves Like Sarah Palin, NYU Researchers Find

Tina Fey has been widely praised for imitating 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s voice and appearance. But researchers at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences went a step further and found that the actress also effectively imitates the Alaska governor’s body language.
    A team headed by computer science professor Chris Bregler has developed a technique to detect human body language in video. Titled “GreenDot,” the project employs motion capture, pattern recognition, and intrinsic biometrics techniques. The moving bar chart at the link http://movement.nyu.edu/palinfey/ shows a comparison of the motion signatures of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, and Palin as the computer is collecting data.
    The goal of the project is to train a computer to recognize a person based on his or her motions and to identify the person’s emotional state, cultural background, and other attributes.
—James Devitt