Animation, Theory of Mind and Humanoid Robots: Creating a Social Robot Video Task

Leonardo ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Ziggy O’Reilly ◽  
David Silvera-Tawil ◽  
Ionat Zurr ◽  
Diana Tan
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Robot ◽  
Autistic Children ◽  
Robot Assisted

Abstract Theory of Mind (ToM) —a social cognitive ability commonly under-developed in autistic individuals— is necessary to attribute mental states to oneself and others. Research into robot-assisted interventions to improve ToM ability in autistic children has become increasingly popular. However, no appropriate task currently exists to measure the degree of efficacy of robot-assisted interventions targeting ToM ability. In this paper, the authors demonstrate how animation techniques and principles can be leveraged to develop and produce videos of humanoid robots interacting, which could selectively measure ToM.

scholarly journals Modulating the Intentional Stance: Humanoid Robots, Narrative and Autistic Traits

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziggy O'Reilly ◽  
Davide Ghiglino ◽  
Nicolas Spatola ◽  
Agnieszka Wykowska
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Humanoid Robot ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Autistic Traits ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Robot ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Before And After

To enhance collaboration between humans and robots it might be important to trigger towards humanoid robots, similar social cognitive mechanisms that are triggered towards humans, such as the adoption of the intentional stance (i.e., explaining an agents behavior with reference to mental states). This study aimed (1) to measure whether a film modulates participants’ tendency to adopt the intentional stance toward a humanoid robot and; (2) to investigate whether autistic traits affects this adoption. We administered two subscales of the InStance Test (IST) (i.e. ‘isolated robot’ subscale and ‘social robot’ subscale) before and after participants watched a film depicting an interaction between a humanoid robot and a human. On the isolated robot subscale, individuals with low autistic traits were more likely to adopt the intentional stance towards a humanoid robot after they watched the film, but there was no effect on individuals with high autistic traits.On the social robot subscale (i.e.when the robot is interactingwith a human) both individuals with low and high autistic traits decreased in their adoption of the intentional stance after they watched the film. This suggests that the content of the narrative and an individual’s social cognitive abilities, affects the degree to which the intentional stance towards a humanoid robot is adopted.

Activation of the Default Network During a Theory of Mind Task Predicts Individual Differences in Agreeableness and Social Cognitive Ability

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aisha Linnea Udochi ◽  
Scott D. Blain ◽  
Philip Burton ◽  
Leroy Medrano ◽  
Colin G. DeYoung
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Network Activity ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Default Network ◽  
Network Activation

Background: Social cognitive processes such as emotion perception and empathy allow humans to navigate complex social landscapes and are associated with specific neural systems. In particular, theory of mind (ToM), which refers to our ability to decipher the mental states of others, is related to the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction, which include portions of the default network. Both social cognition and the default network have been linked to the personality trait Agreeableness. We hypothesized that default network activity during a ToM task would positively predict social cognitive abilities and Agreeableness.Method: In a 3T fMRI scanner, participants (N = 1050) completed a ToM task in which they observed triangles displaying random or social (i.e., human-like) movement. Participants also completed self-report measures of Agreeableness and tests of intelligence and social cognitive ability. Average blood oxygen level dependent responses were calculated for default network regions associated with social cognition, and structural equation modeling was used to test associations of personality and task performance with activation in those brain regions. Results: Default network activation in the dorsal medial subsystem was greater for social vs. random animations. Default network activation in response to social animations predicted better performance across social cognitive tasks and higher levels of Agreeableness.Conclusions: Strength of neural response to social stimuli in the default network, and particularly its dorsal medial subsystem, may facilitate effective social processing and have downstream effects on social interactions. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications of this work for social and personality neuroscience.

Using the social robot probo as a social story telling agent for children with ASD

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 348-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bram Vanderborght ◽  
Ramona Simut ◽  
Jelle Saldien ◽  
Cristina A. Pop ◽  
Alina S. Rusu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Performance ◽  
Social Stories ◽  
Social Robot ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Autistic Children ◽  
Story Telling ◽  
Robot Assisted ◽  
Social Story ◽  
The Social ◽  
Children's Social Skills

This paper aims to study the role of the social robot Probo in providing assistance to a therapist for robot assisted therapy (RAT) with autistic children. Children with autism have difficulties with social interaction and several studies indicate that they show preference toward interaction with objects, such as computers and robots, rather than with humans. In 1991, Carol Gray developed Social Stories, an intervention tool aimed to increase children’s social skills. Social stories are short scenarios written or tailored for autistic individuals to help them understand and behave appropriately in social situations. This study shows that, in specific situations, the social performance of autistic children improves when using the robot Probo, as a medium for social story telling, than when a human reader tells the stories. The robot tells Social Stories to teach ASD children how to react in situations like saying “hello”, saying “thank you” and “sharing toys”. The robot has the capability of expressing emotions and attention via its facial expressions and its gaze. The paper discusses the use of Probo as an added-value therapeutic tool for social story telling and presents the first experimental results. Keywords: social robot; ASD children; social story; robot assisted therapy

Developmental Pragmatics

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Rosenthal Rollins
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Child ◽  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
Communicative Intention ◽  
The Social ◽  
Early Interaction

This chapter traces the development of communicative intention, conversation, and narrative in early interaction from infancy to early childhood. True communicative intention commences once the infant acquires the social cognitive ability to share attention and intention with another. The developing child’s pragmatic understanding is reflective of his/her underlying motivations for cooperation and shared intentionality. As children begin to understand others’ mental states, they can take others’ perspectives and understand what knowledge is shared and with whom, moving from joint perceptual focus to more decontextualized communicative intentions. With adult assistance, the young child is able to engage in increasingly more sophisticated conversational exchanges and co-constructed narratives which influence the child’s autonomous capabilities.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of theory-of-mind are associated with variation in children’s everyday social cognition

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 579-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cora E Mukerji ◽  
Sarah Hope Lincoln ◽  
David Dodell-Feder ◽  
Charles A Nelson ◽  
Christine I Hooker
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Mental States ◽  
False Belief ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Cognitive Behavior ◽  
School Age ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
False Belief Reasoning

ABSTRACT Theory of mind (ToM), the capacity to reason about others’ mental states, is central to healthy social development. Neural mechanisms supporting ToM may contribute to individual differences in children’s social cognitive behavior. Employing a false belief functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm, we identified patterns of neural activity and connectivity elicited by ToM reasoning in school-age children (N = 32, ages 9–13). Next, we tested relations between these neural ToM correlates and children’s everyday social cognition. Several key nodes of the neural ToM network showed greater activity when reasoning about false beliefs (ToM condition) vs non-mentalistic false content (control condition), including the bilateral temporoparietal junction (RTPJ and LTPJ), precuneus (PC) and right superior temporal sulcus. In addition, children demonstrated task-modulated changes in connectivity among these regions to support ToM relative to the control condition. ToM-related activity in the PC was negatively associated with variation in multiple aspects of children’s social cognitive behavior. Together, these findings elucidate how nodes of the ToM network act and interact to support false belief reasoning in school-age children and suggest that neural ToM mechanisms are linked to variation in everyday social cognition.

scholarly journals Intentional mindset towards robots – open questions and methodological challenges

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elef Schellen ◽  
Agnieszka Wykowska
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Effective Interaction ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
The Relationship

Natural and effective interaction with humanoid robots should involve social cognitive mechanisms of the human brain that normally facilitate social interaction between humans. Recent research has indicated that the presence and efficiency of these mechanisms in human-robot interaction (HRI) might be contingent on the adoption of a set of attitudes, mindsets and beliefs concerning the robot’s inner machinery. Current research is investigating the factors that influence these mindsets, and how they affect HRI. This review focuses on a specific mindset, namely the “intentional mindset” in which intentionality is attributed to another agent. More specifically, we focus on the concept of adopting the intentional stance towards robots, i.e., the tendency to predict and explain the robots’ behavior with reference to mental states. We discuss the relationship between adoption of intentional stance and lower-level mechanisms of social cognition, and we provide a critical evaluation of research methods currently employed in this field, highlighting common pitfalls in the measurement of attitudes and mindsets.

scholarly journals Theory of Mind Increases Aesthetic Appreciation in Visual Arts

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Marina Iosifyan
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Causal Relationship ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Emotional State ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Aesthetic Cognition ◽  
Mental Characteristics

Abstract Theory of mind is a cognitive ability that enables us to understand mental states of others, important in real-life communications as well as in aesthetic cognition. The present research investigated whether understanding intentions and emotions is related to aesthetic appreciation. Study 1 tested whether there is a link between aesthetic appreciation of cinematic films and attempts to understand the intentions and emotions of the artists and the film characters. It showed that a self-reported understanding of emotions and intentions is positively associated with aesthetic appreciation. Studies 2 and 4 investigated a causal relationship between the attempt to understand emotions and an aesthetic appreciation of artistic photos. Study 3 investigated an actual understanding of emotions and aesthetic appreciation of movie shots. The results show that when people evaluate the emotional state of the characters, they aesthetically appreciate artistic photos more, compared to when they evaluate non-mental characteristics of these photos (age of the characters, the colour of the photos). Moreover, better understanding of another’s emotions is related to greater aesthetic appreciation.

Theory of Mind, Excessive Reassurance-Seeking, and Stress Generation in Depression: A Social-Cognitive-Interpersonal Integration

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (9) ◽  
pp. 725-750
Author(s):  
Chloe C. Hudson ◽  
Amanda L. Shamblaw ◽  
Gillian A. Wilson ◽  
Meighen M. Roes ◽  
Mark A. Sabbagh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Stressful Life Events ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Stress Generation ◽  
Reassurance Seeking ◽  
Lower Accuracy ◽  
Depressed Group ◽  
Excessive Reassurance Seeking ◽  
Interpersonal Model

Introduction: According to the interpersonal model of depression, individuals with depression engage in excessive reassurance-seeking (ERS) about others’ beliefs regarding their self-worth, which can ultimately result in interpersonal rejection. We present the novel hypothesis that maladaptive ERS behaviors in depression may be driven by difficulties with “theory of mind”—the foundational ability to decode and reason about others’ mental states. Method: Participants included 31 young adults in a current episode of a unipolar depressive disorder, and 91 never-depressed adults. Theory of mind was assessed with standard, objective laboratory tasks. Stressful life events were assessed with a gold-standard contextual interview and independent rating system. Results: Consistent with hypotheses, in the depressed group only, lower accuracy of theory of mind decoding was associated with greater ERS, which was significantly associated with exposure to greater interpersonal, but not non-interpersonal, stress. Surprisingly, higher accuracy of theory of mind reasoning was associated with greater ERS. Discussion: The intriguing dissociation is discussed in terms of expanding the interpersonal model of depression to include the foundational social cognitive processes that underlie effective social communication.

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