Can NAO Robot Influence the Eye Gaze and Joint Attention of Mentally Impaired Young Adults?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Freire ◽  
António Valente ◽  
Vítor Filipe
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Nao Robot ◽  
Mentally Impaired

Children with autism social engagement in interaction with Nao, an imitative robot

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Tapus ◽  
Andreea Peca ◽  
Amir Aly ◽  
Cristina A. Pop ◽  
Lavinia Jisa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Engagement ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Arm Movements ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Video Data ◽  
Assistive Robotics ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Single Subject ◽  
Nao Robot ◽  
Human Partner

This paper presents a series of 4 single subject experiments aimed to investigate whether children with autism show more social engagement when interacting with the Nao robot, compared to a human partner in a motor imitation task. The Nao robot imitates gross arm movements of the child in real-time. Different behavioral criteria (i.e. eye gaze, gaze shifting, free initiations and prompted initiations of arm movements, and smile/laughter) were analyzed based on the video data of the interaction. The results are mixed and suggest a high variability in reactions to the Nao robot. The results are as follows: For Child2 and Child3, the results indicate no effect of the Nao robot in any of the target variables. Child1 and Child4 showed more eye gaze and smile/laughter in the interaction with the Nao robot compared to the human partner and Child1 showed a higher frequency of motor initiations in the interaction with the Nao robot compared to the baselines, but not with respect to the human-interaction. The robot proved to be a better facilitator of shared attention only for Child1. Keywords: human-robot interaction; assistive robotics; autism

scholarly journals Deixis as a symbolic phenomenon

2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna E. West
Keyword(s):  
Joint Attention ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Role Taking ◽  
Speech Situation

Children's early development of demonstrative use emanates directly from indexical gestures, namely, eye gaze, pointing, prehensile reaching, and giving exchanges. These indexical gestures become social in that they are joint attentional, and mark the inception of deictic use. Although children's deictic use draws upon index as a directional and social phenomenon, early uses of index alone do not deliver any semantic/lexical/symbolic determinants to the mix. The distinctive premise here is that deictics, especially demonstratives, are not merely social, but symbolic from a Peircian perspective, especially in light of developmental findings (West 1986, 1987, 2010; Tanz 2009) indicating an acquisitional pattern of non-contrastive to contrastive uses of "this" and "that" from 3;0–4;9. While initial non-contrastive uses of demonstratives are directional and/or social, contrastive use after 3;0 requires apprehension of symbolic role taking/role shifting. In addition to delivering the indexical and/or social, deictic indicators must implicitly refer to a class (Nunberg 1993, 1995), e.g., near/far objects from speaker's perspective in the case of demonstratives, and must ultimately have the potential to contrast objects/places with respect to distinctive points of orientation. These components together illustrate how mastery of deictic indicators is both a socio-pragmatic and semantic enterprise. In addition to indexing objects and securing joint attention with gesture, deixis requires semiotic and semantically based orientational competencies to shift perspectives and speech situation roles.

scholarly journals Visual attention during the evaluation of facial attractiveness is influenced by facial angles and smile

2018 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seol Hee Kim ◽  
Soonshin Hwang ◽  
Yeon-Ju Hong ◽  
Jae-Jin Kim ◽  
Kyung-Ho Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Facial Attractiveness ◽  
Fixation Time ◽  
Facial Esthetics ◽  
Attractive Face ◽  
Tracking Device ◽  
Face Task

ABSTRACT Objective: To examine the changes in visual attention influenced by facial angles and smile during the evaluation of facial attractiveness. Materials and Methods: Thirty-three young adults were asked to rate the overall facial attractiveness (task 1 and 3) or to select the most attractive face (task 2) by looking at multiple panel stimuli consisting of 0°, 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, and 90° rotated facial photos with or without a smile for three model face photos and a self-photo (self-face). Eye gaze and fixation time (FT) were monitored by the eye-tracking device during the performance. Participants were asked to fill out a subjective questionnaire asking, “Which face was primarily looked at when evaluating facial attractiveness?” Results: When rating the overall facial attractiveness (task 1) for model faces, FT was highest for the 0° face and lowest for the 90° face regardless of the smile (P < .01). However, when the most attractive face was to be selected (task 2), the FT of the 0° face decreased, while it significantly increased for the 45° face (P < .001). When facial attractiveness was evaluated with the simplified panels combined with facial angles and smile (task 3), the FT of the 0° smiling face was the highest (P < .01). While most participants reported that they looked mainly at the 0° smiling face when rating facial attractiveness, visual attention was broadly distributed within facial angles. Conclusions: Laterally rotated faces and presence of a smile highly influence visual attention during the evaluation of facial esthetics.

scholarly journals Responding to joint attention bids in schizophrenia: An interactive eye-tracking study

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (8) ◽  
pp. 2068-2083 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Caruana ◽  
Kiley Seymour ◽  
Jon Brock ◽  
Robyn Langdon
Keyword(s):  
Joint Attention ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Directional Information ◽  
Communicative Intent ◽  
Gaze Cues

This study investigated social cognition in schizophrenia using a virtual reality paradigm to capture the dynamic processes of evaluating and responding to eye gaze as an intentional communicative cue. A total of 21 patients with schizophrenia and 21 age-, gender-, and IQ-matched healthy controls completed an interactive computer game with an on-screen avatar that participants believed was controlled by an off-screen partner. On social trials, participants were required to achieve joint attention by correctly interpreting and responding to gaze cues. Participants also completed non-social trials in which they responded to an arrow cue within the same task context. While patients and controls took equivalent time to process communicative intent from gaze shifts, patients made significantly more errors than controls when responding to the directional information conveyed by gaze, but not arrow, cues. Despite no differences in response times to gaze cues between groups, patients were significantly slower than controls when responding to arrow cues. This is the opposite pattern of results previously observed in autistic adults using the same task and suggests that, despite general impairments in attention orienting or oculomotor control, patients with schizophrenia demonstrate a facilitation effect when responding to communicative gaze cues. Findings indicate a hyper-responsivity to gaze cues of communicative intent in schizophrenia. The possible effects of self-referential biases when evaluating gaze direction are discussed, as are clinical implications.

Dissociable Roles of the Superior Temporal Sulcus and the Intraparietal Sulcus in Joint Attention: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Materna ◽  
Peter W. Dicke ◽  
Peter Thier
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Superior Temporal Sulcus ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Intraparietal Sulcus ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging

Previous imaging work has shown that the superior temporal sulcus (STS) region and the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) are specifically activated during the passive observation of shifts in eye gaze [Pelphrey, K. A., Singerman, J. D., Allison, T., & McCarthy, G. Brain activation evoked by perception of gaze shifts: The influence of context. Neuropsychologia, 41, 156–170, 2003; Hoffman, E. A., & Haxby, J. V. Distinct representations of eye gaze and identity in the distributed human neural system for face perception. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 80–84, 2000; Puce, A., Allison, T., Bentin, S., Gore, J. C., & McCarthy, G. Temporal cortex activation in humans viewing eye and mouth movements. Journal of Neuroscience, 18, 2188–2199, 1998; Wicker, B., Michel, F., Henaff, M. A., & Decety, J. Brain regions involved in the perception of gaze: A PET study. Neuroimage, 8, 221–227, 1998]. Are the same brain regions also involved in extracting gaze direction in order to establish joint attention? In an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, healthy human subjects actively followed the directional cue provided by the eyes of another person toward an object in space or, in the control condition, used a nondirectional symbolic cue to make an eye movement toward an object in space. Our results show that the posterior part of the STS region and the cuneus are specifically involved in extracting and using detailed directional information from the eyes of another person to redirect one's own gaze and establish joint attention. The IPS, on the other hand, seems to be involved in encoding spatial direction and mediating shifts of spatial attention independent of the type of cue that triggers this process.

Joint attention difficulties in autistic adults: An interactive eye-tracking study

Autism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 502-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Caruana ◽  
Heidi Stieglitz Ham ◽  
Jon Brock ◽  
Alexandra Woolgar ◽  
Nadine Kloth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Adults With Autism ◽  
Autistic Adults ◽  
Subjective Reports ◽  
Infants And Young Children

Joint attention – the ability to coordinate attention with a social partner – is critical for social communication, learning and the regulation of interpersonal relationships. Infants and young children with autism demonstrate impairments in both initiating and responding to joint attention bids in naturalistic settings. However, little is known about joint attention abilities in adults with autism. Here, we tested 17 autistic adults and 17 age- and nonverbal intelligence quotient–matched controls using an interactive eye-tracking paradigm in which participants initiated and responded to joint attention bids with an on-screen avatar. Compared to control participants, autistic adults completed fewer trials successfully. They were also slower to respond to joint attention bids in the first block of testing but performed as well as controls in the second block. There were no group differences in responding to spatial cues on a non-social task with similar attention and oculomotor demands. These experimental results were mirrored in the subjective reports given by participants, with some commenting that they initially found it challenging to communicate using eye gaze, but were able to develop strategies that allowed them to achieve joint attention. Our study indicates that for many autistic individuals, subtle difficulties using eye-gaze information persist well into adulthood.

scholarly journals Combining a Being Imitated Strategy With IBT Improves Basic Joint Attention Behaviors in Young Children With ASD

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgitta Spjut Janson ◽  
Mikael Heimann ◽  
Felix-Sebastian Koch
Keyword(s):  
Joint Attention ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Treatment As Usual ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Early Implementation ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Score Point

In the present study, we examined how an initial being imitated (BIm) strategy affected the development of initiating joint attention (IJA) among a group of children newly diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One group received 3 months of BIm followed by 12 months of intensive behavior treatment (IBT) which equaled treatment as usual whereas a second group received IBT for the entire 15-month study period. We utilized two measures of IJA: an eye gaze and a gesture score (point and show). IJA did not change during the first 3 months of treatment, nor were any significant between-group differences noted. However, at the end of the 15-month-long intervention period, the BIm group used eye gaze significantly more often to initiate joint attention. No significant change was noted for the gesture score. These results suggest that an early implementation of a being imitated strategy might be useful as less resource intensive but beneficial “start-up” intervention when combined with IBT treatment as a follow-up.

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