scholarly journals A Humanoid Robot’s Effortful Adaptation Boosts Partners’ Commitment to an Interactive Teaching Task

2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Alessia Vignolo ◽  
Henry Powell ◽  
Francesco Rea ◽  
Alessandra Sciutti ◽  
Luke Mcellin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Interactive Teaching ◽  
Human Participant ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Adaptive Condition

We tested the hypothesis that, if a robot apparently invests effort in teaching a new skill to a human participant, the human participant will reciprocate by investing more effort in teaching the robot a new skill, too. To this end, we devised a scenario in which the iCub and a human participant alternated in teaching each other new skills. In the Adaptive condition of the robot teaching phase , the iCub slowed down its movements when repeating a demonstration for the human learner, whereas in the Unadaptive condition it sped the movements up when repeating the demonstration. In a subsequent participant teaching phase , human participants were asked to give the iCub a demonstration, and then to repeat it if the iCub had not understood. We predicted that in the Adaptive condition , participants would reciprocate the iCub’s adaptivity by investing more effort to slow down their movements and to increase segmentation when repeating their demonstration. The results showed that this was true when participants experienced the Adaptive condition after the Unadaptive condition and not when the order was inverted, indicating that participants were particularly sensitive to the changes in the iCub’s level of commitment over the course of the experiment.

Development proposals of Human Research Protection Program

2020 ◽  
pp. 096973302095211
Author(s):  
Jiyin Zhou ◽  
Dan Liu
Keyword(s):  
Ethics Committees ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Ethical Review ◽  
Human Research ◽  
The Status ◽  
Human Participant ◽  
Human Research Protection Program ◽  
Communication And Coordination ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Human Research Protection

Background: China’s ethics committees alone are unable to meet the growing need for human participant protection. Several scandals in recent years indicate weaknesses in the protection of human participants in China. Objectives: The aim of the study is to summarize the status and problems of human research protection program in China and to explore its establishment proposals at national and hospital levels. Research design: To conduct literature retrieval, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Document Database, and English databases Web of Science and PubMed were searched; laws, guidelines, and regulations were also searched on web by Google and Chinese search engine Baidu. Ethical considerations: No data were collected from human participants, and ethical review was not required. Findings: There are problems for China’s Human Research Protection Program, such as weak relevant legal systems, insufficient administrative supervision, and incompetent ethics committee capacities. To fully protect human participants, China should promote the development of Human Research Protection Program, which can formulate ethics-related laws, improve regulations for the protection of the safety and rights of human participants, strengthen supervision, and enforce compensation for human participants. Owing to the frequency with which human participants are recruited in hospitals in China, hospitals can utilize existing ethics committees and establish data and safety monitoring committees, quality control, fund and contract management, and conflict of interest management offices. Discussion: As a growing program, it remains necessary to learn from the experience of developed countries with high ethics standards and reformulate them to fit China’s conditions to explore potential future development. The program will also be an experience for other developing countries. Conclusion: Human Research Protection Program can strengthen communication and coordination among various hospital departments to effectively protect the rights and welfare of human participants.

scholarly journals Becoming Team Members: Identifying Interaction Patterns of Mutual Adaptation for Human-Robot Co-Learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma M. van Zoelen ◽  
Karel van den Bosch ◽  
Mark Neerincx
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Interaction Patterns ◽  
Urban Search And Rescue ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Mutual Adaptation ◽  
Communication Processes ◽  
Human Participant ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Robot Communication

Becoming a well-functioning team requires continuous collaborative learning by all team members. This is called co-learning, conceptualized in this paper as comprising two alternating iterative stages: partners adapting their behavior to the task and to each other (co-adaptation), and partners sustaining successful behavior through communication. This paper focuses on the first stage in human-robot teams, aiming at a method for the identification of recurring behaviors that indicate co-learning. Studying this requires a task context that allows for behavioral adaptation to emerge from the interactions between human and robot. We address the requirements for conducting research into co-adaptation by a human-robot team, and designed a simplified computer simulation of an urban search and rescue task accordingly. A human participant and a virtual robot were instructed to discover how to collaboratively free victims from the rubbles of an earthquake. The virtual robot was designed to be able to real-time learn which actions best contributed to good team performance. The interactions between human participants and robots were recorded. The observations revealed patterns of interaction used by human and robot in order to adapt their behavior to the task and to one another. Results therefore show that our task environment enables us to study co-learning, and suggest that more participant adaptation improved robot learning and thus team level learning. The identified interaction patterns can emerge in similar task contexts, forming a first description and analysis method for co-learning. Moreover, the identification of interaction patterns support awareness among team members, providing the foundation for human-robot communication about the co-adaptation (i.e., the second stage of co-learning). Future research will focus on these human-robot communication processes for co-learning.

scholarly journals Veterinary-prescribed physical activity promotes walking in healthy dogs and people

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen Duncan ◽  
Angela Carswell ◽  
Tracy Nelson ◽  
Dan J. Graham ◽  
Felix M. Duerr
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Wearable Devices ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Veterinary Clinic ◽  
Health Indices ◽  
Human Participant ◽  
Healthy Dogs ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Monitoring Devices

Abstract Background Regular physical activity (PA) promotes health and can prevent and treat diseases among both humans and dogs. Unfortunately, most U.S. adults do not meet PA recommendations, and many dogs are also insufficiently active. Veterinary-prescribed PA programs have shown some success in increasing activity among overweight dogs, but the impacts of such programs have not yet been tested for efficacy among otherwise-healthy dogs and owners. In addition, although wearable devices that monitor PA and provide individuals with feedback (e.g., progress toward a daily step goal) can effectively increase human PA, it is unclear what impact similar wearable devices have on human and dog PA when the PA-monitoring devices are worn by dogs. The present study assessed the impact of an 8-week veterinary-prescribed PA program on activity and health among dogs and their owners, and randomized participants (n = 59) to two groups: one in which PA was measured but not visible to participants (n = 30), and one in which PA was measured and real time feedback was visible through a wearable device (n = 29). Results Participants in both groups showed significant PA increases over the course of the 8-week program. Biomedical testing performed at the veterinary clinic facilitated early diagnosis of systemic illness in one human participant. The frequency of hypertension in human participants decreased significantly from baseline to the end of the program (week 8). Other health indices (e.g., BMI in humans, body weight and BCS in dogs) improved, albeit not to a statistically significant extent, over the course of the program. There were no significant differences on the outcomes of interest between the two experimental conditions. Conclusions Veterinary-prescribed PA programs appear promising for increasing PA among insufficiently active but otherwise healthy dogs as well as their owners. Additional testing of veterinary-prescribed PA is warranted, particularly at other types of veterinary clinics (e.g., private practices). Incorporating wearable devices permitting owners to track canine PA did not appear necessary for obtaining these benefits; however, additional studies investigating alternative devices or different time periods may be warranted.

Ethics, Epistemology, and Openness in Research with Human Participants

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Diana Kapiszewski ◽  
Elisabeth Jean Wood
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
The Political ◽  
Multiple Features ◽  
Human Participant ◽  
Research Transparency ◽  
Human Participants

The political science discipline has recently engaged in contentious debate about the value of “research transparency,” particularly for research with human participants. The discipline is also holding vital conversations about research ethics and is rekindling dialogue about different ways of knowing. We offer an integrated account of how the actions that scholars who conduct human participant research take to respect ethical principles (which vary by research substance and settings), and their epistemological commitments (which vary across researchers), influence openness, a broader concept than “transparency.” These principles and commitments shape scholars’ openness practices simultaneously—both independently and in concert—serving as a prism through which multiple features of a research project are refracted, and resulting in a scholar’s inclination and ability to pursue openness in different ways and to different degrees with the audiences of her work. We also show how ethical principles and epistemological commitments can not only constrain and prevent openness, but also animate and require it. We suggest that scholars pursuing openness ethically, and in ways that honor their epistemological commitments, represents good social science, and we offer strategies for doing so. To develop our argument, we focus primarily on two research methods, ethnography and interviews, and on openness toward two audiences, human participants and research communities. Our account illuminates how the heterogeneity of human participant research makes it inappropriate, indeed impossible, to develop blanket rules for pursuing openness. Throughout, we highlight the importance of reflexivity for the ethical conduct of, and for being ethically open about, political science research.

scholarly journals Rethinking Data Sharing and Human Participant Protection in Social Science Research: Applications from the Qualitative Realm

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dessi Kirilova ◽  
Sebastian Karcher
Keyword(s):  
Data Sharing ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Data Repository ◽  
Management Options ◽  
Secondary Use ◽  
Access Controls ◽  
Human Participant ◽  
Human Participants

While data sharing is becoming increasingly common in quantitative social inquiry, qualitative data are rarely shared. One factor inhibiting data sharing is a concern about human participant protections and privacy. Protecting the confidentiality and safety of research participants is a concern for both quantitative and qualitative researchers, but it raises specific concerns within the epistemic context of qualitative research. Thus, the applicability of emerging protection models from the quantitative realm must be carefully evaluated for application to the qualitative realm. At the same time, qualitative scholars already employ a variety of strategies for human-participant protection implicitly or informally during the research process.In this practice paper, we assess available strategies for protecting human participants and how they can be deployed. We describe a spectrum of possible data management options, such as anonymization and applying access controls, including some already employed by the Qualitative Data Repository (QDR) in tandem with its pilot depositors. Throughout the discussion, we consider the tension between modifying data or restricting access to them, and retaining their analytic value. We argue that developing explicit guidelines for sharing qualitative data generated through interaction with humans will allow scholars to address privacy concerns and increase the secondary use of their data.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document