Avatars in Pain: Visible Harm Enhances Mind Perception in Humans and Robots

Perception ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (12) ◽  
pp. 1139-1152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Swiderska ◽  
Dennis Küster

Previous research has shown that when people read vignettes about the infliction of harm upon an entity appearing to have no more than a liminal mind, their attributions of mind to that entity increased. Currently, we investigated if the presence of a facial wound enhanced the perception of mental capacities (experience and agency) in response to images of robotic and human-like avatars, compared with unharmed avatars. The results revealed that harmed versions of both robotic and human-like avatars were imbued with mind to a higher degree, irrespective of the baseline level of mind attributed to their unharmed counterparts. Perceptions of capacity for pain mediated attributions of experience, while both pain and empathy mediated attributions of abilities linked to agency. The findings suggest that harm, even when it appears to have been inflicted unintentionally, may augment mind perception for robotic as well as for nearly human entities, at least as long as it is perceived to elicit pain.

1982 ◽  
Vol 48 (02) ◽  
pp. 156-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
E J P Brommer ◽  
M M Barrett-Bergshoeff ◽  
R A Allen ◽  
I Schicht ◽  
R M Bertina ◽  
...  

SummaryIntravenous infusion of desmopressin (DDAVP, 0.4 μg/kg b.w. in 12’) causes an increase in the level of extrinsic plasminogen activator, measured in plasma euglobulin fractions with added C1-inactivator on fibrin plates. A poor response or no response at all was elicited in two out of 21 patients with spontaneous thrombosis, 18/38 with hyperlipoproteinaemia and 10/14 with terminal renal insufficiency requiring haemodialysis.Haemodilution during the first 30’ after starting the DDAVP-infusion occurred both in responders and in non-responders; so did haemodynamic reactions: increase in heart rate, drop in diastolic blood pressure, facial flushing. The rise of fibrinolytic activity was shown not to be associated with decreased hepatic blood flow. Normal factor VIII-rises in “non-responders” indicate the responsiveness of the receptive organs, including the hypothalamus, to DDAVP.Despite a normal baseline level of fibrinolytic activity in the blood, as occurs for instance in terminal renal insufficiency, the vascular endothelium may be refractory to stimulation. In some patients, especially in type IV hyperlipoproteinaemia, a selective defect of the release of plasminogen activator is postulated. In subjects with low fibrinolytic activity at rest, as observed in spontaneous thromboembolism and in hypertriglyceridaemia, the failure to release plasminogen activator upon stimulation with DDAVP might be a consequence of an impairment of synthesis as well.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Noguera

This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a novel mind perception manipulation. Mind perception is currently theorized to be an essential aspect of a number of human social psychological processes. Thus, a successful manipulation would allow for the causal study of those processes. This manipulation was created in an attempt to explore the downstream impact of mind perception on the endorsement of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are steadily becoming more and more prominent in social discourse. Endorsement of conspiracy theories are beginning to show real world ramifications such as a danger to human health (e.g., in the anti-vaccination movement). A sample of college students (valid N = 53) from a large rural institution in the southeastern United States participated for course credit. These participants completed a mind perception pretest, were randomly assigned to either the manipulation in question (in which participants are asked to consider the ‘mind’ of several targets and write their thoughts about them) or the control condition, and then they completed a posttest. The mixed ANOVA revealed that the interaction term between Time and Condition was not significant. Because the manipulation did not work, other analyses were aborted, in accord with the pre-registration. My Discussion focuses on the procedures and potential shortcomings of this manipulation, in an effort to lay the groundwork for a successful one.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laakasuo ◽  
Anton Berg ◽  
Jukka Sundvall ◽  
Marianna Drosinou ◽  
Volo Herzon ◽  
...  

In this chapter, we will provide theoretical background of discussion on issues related to AIs. Some of the main topics, theories and frameworks are mind perception and moral cognition, moral psychology, evolutionary psychology, trans-humanism and ontological categories shaped by evolution.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulaziz Abubshait ◽  
Patrick P. Weis ◽  
Eva Wiese

Social signals, such as changes in gaze direction, are essential cues to predict others’ mental states and behaviors (i.e., mentalizing). Studies show that humans can mentalize with non-human agents when they perceive a mind in them (i.e., mind perception). Robots that physically and/or behaviorally resemble humans likely trigger mind perception, which enhances the relevance of social cues and improves social-cognitive performance. The current ex-periments examine whether the effect of physical and behavioral influencers of mind perception on social-cognitive processing is modulated by the lifelikeness of a social interaction. Participants interacted with robots of varying degrees of physical (humanlike vs. robot-like) and behavioral (reliable vs. random) human-likeness while the lifelikeness of a social attention task was manipulated across five experiments. The first four experiments manipulated lifelikeness via the physical realism of the robot images (Study 1 and 2), the biological plausibility of the social signals (Study 3), and the plausibility of the social con-text (Study 4). They showed that humanlike behavior affected social attention whereas appearance affected mind perception ratings. However, when the lifelikeness of the interaction was increased by using videos of a human and a robot sending the social cues in a realistic environment (Study 5), social attention mechanisms were affected both by physical appearance and behavioral features, while mind perception ratings were mainly affected by physical appearance. This indicates that in order to understand the effect of physical and behavioral features on social cognition, paradigms should be used that adequately simulate the lifelikeness of social interactions.


Author(s):  
Minha Lee ◽  
Gale Lucas ◽  
Jonathan Gratch

AbstractRecent research shows that how we respond to other social actors depends on what sort of mind we ascribe to them. In a comparative manner, we observed how perceived minds of agents shape people’s behavior in the dictator game, ultimatum game, and negotiation against artificial agents. To do so, we varied agents’ minds on two dimensions of the mind perception theory: agency (cognitive aptitude) and patiency (affective aptitude) via descriptions and dialogs. In our first study, agents with emotional capacity garnered more allocations in the dictator game, but in the ultimatum game, agents’ described agency and affective capacity, both led to greater offers. In the second study on negotiation, agents ascribed with low-agency traits earned more points than those with high-agency traits, though the negotiation tactic was the same for all agents. Although patiency did not impact game points, participants sent more happy and surprise emojis and emotionally valenced messages to agents that demonstrated emotional capacity during negotiations. Further, our exploratory analyses indicate that people related only to agents with perceived affective aptitude across all games. Both perceived agency and affective capacity contributed to moral standing after dictator and ultimatum games. But after negotiations, only agents with perceived affective capacity were granted moral standing. Manipulating mind dimensions of machines has differing effects on how people react to them in dictator and ultimatum games, compared to a more complex economic exchange like negotiation. We discuss these results, which show that agents are perceived not only as social actors, but as intentional actors through negotiations, in contrast with simple economic games.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002224292199708
Author(s):  
Raji Srinivasan ◽  
Gülen Sarial-Abi

Algorithms increasingly used by brands sometimes fail to perform as expected or even worse, cause harm, causing brand harm crises. Unfortunately, algorithm failures are increasing in frequency. Yet, we know little about consumers’ responses to brands following such brand harm crises. Extending developments in the theory of mind perception, we hypothesize that following a brand harm crisis caused by an algorithm error (vs. human error), consumers will respond less negatively to the brand. We further hypothesize that consumers’ lower mind perception of agency of the algorithm (vs. human) for the error that lowers their perceptions of the algorithm’s responsibility for the harm caused by the error will mediate this relationship. We also hypothesize four moderators of this relationship: two algorithm characteristics, anthropomorphized algorithm and machine learning algorithm and two task characteristics where the algorithm is deployed, subjective (vs. objective) task and interactive (vs. non-interactive) task. We find support for the hypotheses in eight experimental studies including two incentive-compatible studies. We examine the effects of two managerial interventions to manage the aftermath of brand harm crises caused by algorithm errors. The research’s findings advance the literature on brand harm crises, algorithm usage, and algorithmic marketing and generate managerial guidelines to address the aftermath of such brand harm crises.


Author(s):  
Eva Wiese ◽  
Patrick P. Weis ◽  
Yochanan Bigman ◽  
Kyra Kapsaskis ◽  
Kurt Gray

AbstractRobots are becoming more available for workplace collaboration, but many questions remain. Are people actually willing to assign collaborative tasks to robots? And if so, exactly which tasks will they assign to what kinds of robots? Here we leverage psychological theories on person-job fit and mind perception to investigate task assignment in human–robot collaborative work. We propose that people will assign robots to jobs based on their “perceived mind,” and also that people will show predictable social biases in their collaboration decisions. In this study, participants performed an arithmetic (i.e., calculating differences) and a social (i.e., judging emotional states) task, either alone or by collaborating with one of two robots: an emotionally capable robot or an emotionally incapable robot. Decisions to collaborate (i.e., to assign the robots to generate the answer) rates were high across all trials, especially for tasks that participants found challenging (i.e., the arithmetic task). Collaboration was predicted by perceived robot-task fit, such that the emotional robot was assigned the social task. Interestingly, the arithmetic task was assigned more to the emotionally incapable robot, despite the emotionally capable robot being equally capable of computation. This is consistent with social biases (e.g., gender bias) in mind perception and person-job fit. The theoretical and practical implications of this work for HRI are being discussed.


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