scholarly journals Parental Acceptance of Children’s Storytelling Robots: A Projection of the Uncanny Valley of AI

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaolan Lin ◽  
Selma Šabanović ◽  
Lynn Dombrowski ◽  
Andrew D. Miller ◽  
Erin Brady ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Parental Acceptance ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
Story Time ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Human Likeness ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Nonlinear Relation ◽  
Design Fiction

Parent–child story time is an important ritual of contemporary parenting. Recently, robots with artificial intelligence (AI) have become common. Parental acceptance of children’s storytelling robots, however, has received scant attention. To address this, we conducted a qualitative study with 18 parents using the research technique design fiction. Overall, parents held mixed, though generally positive, attitudes toward children’s storytelling robots. In their estimation, these robots would outperform screen-based technologies for children’s story time. However, the robots’ potential to adapt and to express emotion caused some parents to feel ambivalent about the robots, which might hinder their adoption. We found three predictors of parental acceptance of these robots: context of use, perceived agency, and perceived intelligence. Parents’ speculation revealed an uncanny valley of AI: a nonlinear relation between the human likeness of the artificial agent’s mind and affinity for the agent. Finally, we consider the implications of children’s storytelling robots, including how they could enhance equity in children’s access to education, and propose directions for research on their design to benefit family well-being.

Human Perception of Animacy in Light of the Uncanny Valley Phenomenon

Perception ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (12) ◽  
pp. 1386-1411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shensheng Wang ◽  
Philippe Rochat
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Sorting Task ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Human Likeness ◽  
Nonlinear Relation ◽  
Human Faces

The uncanny valley hypothesis by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori posits a nonlinear relation between human replicas’ human likeness and the emotional responses they elicit. In three studies, we corroborated the uncanny valley hypothesis, using the uncanny phenomenon as a vehicle to shed a new light on human animacy perception. In Study 1, 62 participants rated emotional responses and human likeness of 89 artificial and human faces. In Study 2, another 62 participants conducted a visual looming task with the same 89 faces allowing for the measurement of perceived threat. Results support the uncanny valley hypothesis, suggesting that the uncanny feeling may serve a function to wary humans of the potential danger of entities crossing the animate–inanimate boundary. In Study 3, 36 participants sorted faces as either real or unreal as quickly as possible in a reaction time sorting task allowing for the measurement of categorical uncertainty associated with animacy perception. Faces associated with longer sorting reaction times were also those associated with the highest ratings of negative emotions, suggesting that categorical uncertainty in animacy detection is related to the uncanny feeling. Results are discussed in light of human animacy perception and new directions for future research are suggested.

Vulnerability context and well-being factors of Indigenous community development: a study of Peninsular Malaysia

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-105
Author(s):  
Md. Khaled Saifullah ◽  
Muhammad Mehedi Masud ◽  
Fatimah Binti Kari
Keyword(s):  
Basic Education ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Peninsular Malaysia ◽  
Indigenous Community ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
Environmental Aspects ◽  
The Social ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Significant Factors

The Indigenous people of Malaysia are a heterogeneous community scattered over more than 852 villages in Peninsular Malaysia. This community has been identified to be among the poorest and marginalized in Peninsular Malaysia. This study evaluates the well-being factors as well as problems that hinder the development of an Indigenous community in Peninsular Malaysia. This article adopted a quantitative approach based on data collected through survey and 2,136 respondents were interviewed. The study reveals that the Indigenous community is likely to remain poor in terms of economic status significantly because of insufficient access to basic education and the inability of being employed. This is also due to the inability to receive support for housing, economic livelihood, and other social infrastructures. In addition, the study indicates that economic status and access to education are the most significant factors that may help improve the overall well-being of an Indigenous community. This finding also suggests that the social and environmental aspects in Peninsular Malaysia have not improved together with economic development.

scholarly journals Sending an Avatar to Do a Human's Job: Compliance with Authority Persists Despite the Uncanny Valley

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Himalaya Patel ◽  
Karl F. MacDorman
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Dilemma ◽  
Sensitive Information ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Risk Of Falling ◽  
Computer Interfaces ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Authority Figure ◽  
Human Likeness ◽  
Motion Quality

Just as physical appearance affects social influence in human communication, it may also affect the processing of advice conveyed through avatars, computer-animated characters, and other human-like interfaces. Although the most persuasive computer interfaces are often the most human-like, they have been predicted to incur the greatest risk of falling into the uncanny valley, the loss of empathy attributed to characters that appear eerily human. Previous studies compared interfaces on the left side of the uncanny valley, namely, those with low human likeness. To examine interfaces with higher human realism, a between-groups factorial experiment was conducted through the internet with 426 midwestern U.S. undergraduates. This experiment presented a hypothetical ethical dilemma followed by the advice of an authority figure. The authority was manipulated in three ways: depiction (digitally recorded or computer animated), motion quality (smooth or jerky), and advice (disclose or refrain from disclosing sensitive information). Of these, only the advice changed opinion about the ethical dilemma, even though the animated depiction was significantly eerier than the human depiction. These results indicate that compliance with an authority persists even when using an uncannily realistic computer-animated double.

The Political Is Personal

2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole M. Else-Quest ◽  
Shelly Grabe
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equity ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
Property Ownership ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Gender Empowerment ◽  
Adequate Measurement ◽  
United Nation

Consistent with the dictum, “the personal is political,” feminist scholars have maintained that gender equity in security, access to education, economic opportunity, and property ownership are central to women’s well-being. Empirical research evaluating this thesis can include nation-level indicators of gender equity, such as the United Nation Development Program’s Gender Empowerment Measure. Yet, despite the growing popularity of such measures, there has been little discussion of the adequate measurement of gender equity or the appropriate application of such tools in theory-grounded empirical research within psychology. Moreover, the bulk of psychological research that has integrated such indicators has not employed a feminist or emancipatory framework. The authors summarize and evaluate nation-level gender equity indicators in order to familiarize researchers with the available tools, and the authors review the limited psychological literature that has used these indicators. The authors also discuss how psychological research can better use gender equity indicators in empirical models to examine political processes linked to women’s well-being.

Education in Emergencies: A Review of Theory and Research

2016 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 619-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Burde ◽  
Amy Kapit ◽  
Rachel L. Wahl ◽  
Ozen Guven ◽  
Margot Igland Skarpeteig
Keyword(s):  
Peace Education ◽  
School Setting ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
Education In Emergencies ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Education And Conflict

In this article, we conduct an integrative and rigorous review of theory and research on education in emergencies programs and interventions as international agencies implement them in areas of armed conflict. We ask several questions. How did this subfield emerge and what are the key conceptual frameworks that shape it today? How do education in emergencies programs affect access, learning, and protection in conflict-affected contexts? To answer these questions, we identify the conceptual frameworks and theoretical advances that have occurred since the inception of the field in the mid-1990s. We review the theories that frame the relationship between education and conflict as well as empirical research that tests assumptions that underpin this relationship. Finally, we assess what we know to date about “what works” in education in emergencies based on intervention research. We find that with regard to access, diminished or inequitable access to education drives conflict; conflict reduces boys’ and girls’ access to education differently; and decreased distance to primary school increases enrollment and attendance significantly for boys and even more so for girls. With regard to learning, education content likely contributes to or mitigates conflict, although the mechanisms through which it does so remain underspecified; and peace education programs show promise in changing attitudes and behaviors toward members of those perceived as the “other,” at least in the short term. Finally, providing children living in emergency and postemergency situations with structured, meaningful, and creative activities in a school setting or in informal learning spaces improves their emotional and behavioral well-being.

Uncanny valley hypothesis and hierarchy of facial features in the human likeness continua: An eye-tracking approach.

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Bouchardet da Fonseca Grebot ◽  
Pedro Henrique Pinheiro Cintra ◽  
Emilly Fátima Ferreira de Lima ◽  
Michella Vaz de Castro ◽  
Rui de Moraes
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Human Likeness

scholarly journals Virtual faces evoke only a weak uncanny valley effect: An empirical investigation with controlled virtual face images

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jari Kätsyri ◽  
Beatrice de Gelder ◽  
Tapio Takala
Keyword(s):  
Linear Relationship ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Subjective Evaluation ◽  
Objective Measures ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Face Images ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Human Likeness ◽  
Upward Curvature ◽  
Virtual Face

The uncanny valley (UV) hypothesis suggests that increasingly human-like robots or virtual characters elicit more familiarity in their observers (positive affinity) with the exception of near-human characters that elicit strong feelings of eeriness (negative affinity). We studied this hypothesis in three experiments with carefully matched images of virtual faces varying from artificial to realistic. We investigated both painted and computer-generated (CG) faces to tap a broad range of human-likeness and to test whether CG faces would be particularly sensitive to the UV effect. Overall, we observed a linear relationship with a slight upward curvature between human-likeness and affinity. In other words, less realistic faces triggered greater eeriness in an accelerating manner. We also observed a weak UV effect for CG faces; however, least human-like faces elicited much more negative affinity in comparison. We conclude that although CG faces elicit a weak UV effect, this effect is not fully analogous to the original UV hypothesis. Instead, the subjective evaluation curve for face images resembles an uncanny slope more than a UV. Based on our results, we also argue that subjective affinity should be contrasted against subjective ratherthan objective measures of human-likeness when testing UV.

scholarly journals Emotional-Personal Well-Being as a Predictor of Social Perception of Representative of Security Services

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larisa Karapetyan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Perception ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
Self Evaluation ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Power Block ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
Internal Affairs ◽  
The Impact

Objective: exploring the impact of emotional and personal well-being on the attitudes of security sector professionals towards other people, both those within their communication zone and those outside it. Methods: (1) Semantic differential technique (SD), where descriptors were represented by 24 personal qualities in terms of which the respondents were asked to evaluate two SD objects: people within their social circle, and those outside it; (2) Emotional-personal well-being self-evaluation technique (EPWBSE), where the respondents evaluate themselves in nine mono-scales. The research sample consisted of 2,229 people from different professional categories, including 298 representatives from the power block (98 people from the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) and 200 respondents from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA)). Conclusions: It was found that representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs demonstrated more positive attitudes towards people from the communication sector, while representatives of the MoI showed more positive attitudes towards people in general. In the MIA sample, emotional-personal well-being is significantly higher and, at the same time, it is related to the dynamics of social perception: the higher the level of emotional-personal well-being, the more positively people in the communication zone are perceived, while the lower the SELB level, the more positively people, in general, are perceived. Trends in social perception in MD representatives can be preconditioned by other factors. Further to the conducted analysis, it is planned to study different-level determinants of social perception in representatives of different security services.

scholarly journals Empowering Women, Developing Society: Female Education in the Middle East and North Africa

1970 ◽  
pp. 4-11
Author(s):  
Faraneh Roudi-Fahimi ◽  
Valentine M. Moghadam
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
School Enrolment ◽  
Mena Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Secondary School Enrolment ◽  
And Gender

Education is a key part of strategies to improve individuals' well-being and societies' economic and social development. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) (countries and territories included in the Middle East and North Africa as defined here are listed in Table 1), access to education has improved dramatically over the past few decades, and there have been a number of encouraging trends in girls' and women's education (see Figure 1). Primary school enrolment is high or universal in most MENA countries, and gender gaps in secondary school enrolment have already disappeared in several countries. Women in MENA countries are also more likely to enrol in universities than they were in the past.

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