Fake Empathy and Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordi Vallverdú ◽  
Toyoaki Nishida ◽  
Yoshisama Ohmoto ◽  
Stuart Moran ◽  
Sarah Lázare
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Basic Emotion ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
Positive Results ◽  
Different Levels

Empathy is a basic emotion trigger for human beings, especially while regulating social relationships and behaviour. The main challenge of this paper is study whether people's empathic reactions towards robots change depending on previous information given to human about the robot before the interaction. The use of false data about robot skills creates different levels of what we call ‘fake empathy'. This study performs an experiment in WOZ environment in which different subjects (n=17) interacting with the same robot while they believe that the robot is a different robot, up to three versions. Each robot scenario provides a different ‘humanoid' description, and out hypothesis is that the more human-like looks the robot, the more empathically can be the human responses. Results were obtained from questionnaires and multi- angle video recordings. Positive results reinforce the strength of our hypothesis, although we recommend a new and bigger and then more robust experiment.

Fake Empathy and Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

2020 ◽  
pp. 1556-1572
Author(s):  
Jordi Vallverdú ◽  
Toyoaki Nishida ◽  
Yoshisama Ohmoto ◽  
Stuart Moran ◽  
Sarah Lázare
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Basic Emotion ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
Positive Results ◽  
Different Levels

Empathy is a basic emotion trigger for human beings, especially while regulating social relationships and behaviour. The main challenge of this paper is study whether people's empathic reactions towards robots change depending on previous information given to human about the robot before the interaction. The use of false data about robot skills creates different levels of what we call ‘fake empathy'. This study performs an experiment in WOZ environment in which different subjects (n=17) interacting with the same robot while they believe that the robot is a different robot, up to three versions. Each robot scenario provides a different ‘humanoid' description, and out hypothesis is that the more human-like looks the robot, the more empathically can be the human responses. Results were obtained from questionnaires and multi- angle video recordings. Positive results reinforce the strength of our hypothesis, although we recommend a new and bigger and then more robust experiment.

scholarly journals Design of Hesitation Gestures for Nonverbal Human-Robot Negotiation of Conflicts

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Ajung Moon ◽  
Maneezhay Hashmi ◽  
H. F. Machiel Van Der Loos ◽  
Elizabeth A. Croft ◽  
Aude Billard
Keyword(s):  
Nonverbal Communication ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Resource Conflicts ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
Interaction Experiment ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Trajectory Generator ◽  
Positive Results

When the question of who should get access to a communal resource first is uncertain, people often negotiate via nonverbal communication to resolve the conflict. What should a robot be programmed to do when such conflicts arise in Human-Robot Interaction? The answer to this question varies depending on the context of the situation. Learning from how humans use hesitation gestures to negotiate a solution in such conflict situations, we present a human-inspired design of nonverbal hesitation gestures that can be used for Human-Robot Negotiation. We extracted characteristic features of such negotiative hesitations humans use, and subsequently designed a trajectory generator (Negotiative Hesitation Generator) that can re-create the features in robot responses to conflicts. Our human-subjects experiment demonstrates the efficacy of the designed robot behaviour against non-negotiative stopping behaviour of a robot. With positive results from our human-robot interaction experiment, we provide a validated trajectory generator with which one can explore the dynamics of human-robot nonverbal negotiation of resource conflicts.

scholarly journals A video-based assessment of likeability and usability in a play application of robots for children

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-120
Author(s):  
Maria Luce Lupetti ◽  
Maria Franca Norese ◽  
Xiaolu Wu ◽  
Haipeng Mi
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Practical Implication ◽  
Social Robots ◽  
Interactive Systems ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Reference Structure ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Research With Children

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct research with children, who have different abilities from adults, in terms of language understanding and level of attention, is a challenging task, especially concerning novel interactive systems such as social robots. Consequently, self-reporting methods are often replaced or supplemented by observational methods that are usually carried out taking advantage of video recordings. However, some limitations make this approach challenging for studies conducted with groups of children in real-world environments, whose relevance is being addressed more and more frequently in human-robot interaction (HRI) research. Thus, there is a growing need for rigorous observation approaches in unstructured test environments. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents an alternative analysis approach, in relation to an experimental child-robot interaction (CRI) application, which was developed at the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University, China. The proposed methodology is based on the analysis of video recordings of in-wild activities of children with a robot. The methodology has the aim of providing a framework to facilitate knowledge identification and structuring. It was implemented for experiment evaluation and validation purposes and to propose a reference structure for the organization of new experiments and the stimulation of new ideas and activities in the design process. Findings This methodology provides a logical structure, which can be used to identify the effectiveness or limits of design choices, pertaining to such aspects as the morphology or movement of robots or the choice of their specific role in education, all of which play crucial roles in the design process and could be improved to achieve better results. This structured identification is a practical implication for the design process, above all when it is oriented toward social robots and their interaction with children or elderly senile people. In this case, the outcomes were the identification of important elements of an experiment (psychological profiles of the involved children and possible problems or risks) and their impact on the design process. Originality/value The methodological approach, which structures and uses cognitive maps to elaborate multicriteria evaluation models, is not new to the operations research field (where it is defined as a multimethodology application of Soft OR), but it has not yet been applied in the field of HRI studies, to analyze children’s perception of a robot and to identify the factors that can affect a good CRI or to structure knowledge that can be shared to guide the design process of robots for the experience of children playing.

The Ethics of Human–Robot Interaction and Traditional Moral Theories

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Nyholm
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Domains Of Life

The rapid introduction of different kinds of robots and other machines with artificial intelligence into different domains of life raises the question of whether robots can be moral agents and moral patients. In other words, can robots perform moral actions? Can robots be on the receiving end of moral actions? To explore these questions, this chapter relates the new area of the ethics of human–robot interaction to traditional ethical theories such as utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and virtue ethics. These theories were developed with the assumption that the paradigmatic examples of moral agents and moral patients are human beings. As this chapter argues, this creates challenges for anybody who wishes to extend the traditional ethical theories to new questions of whether robots can be moral agents and/or moral patients.

Advice from Robots: Would You Choose a Robot that Looked More or Less Human?

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-121
Author(s):  
Min Ji Kim ◽  
Amroté Getu ◽  
Heath Sharp ◽  
Eva Wiese
Keyword(s):  
Task Assignment ◽  
Task Type ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Advice Seeking ◽  
Human Likeness ◽  
Agent Selection ◽  
Different Levels

Humans are increasingly turning to non-human agents for advice. Therefore, it is important to investigate if human-likeness of a robot affects advice-seeking. In this experiment, participants chose robot advisors with different levels of human-likeness when completing either social or analytical tasks, and the task was either known or unknown when the robot advisor was selected. In the agent first condition, participants chose the advisor before receiving their task assignment, and in the task first condition participants received their task assignment before choosing the advisor. Results indicated that task type did not play a role in agent selection in either condition. However, in the agent first condition, more human-like robots (Nao and Kodomoroid) were selected at a higher rate than machine-like robots (Cozmo) and, in the task first condition, Nao was selected at a higher rate than Cozmo or Kodomoroid. These results should be considered when designing robots for giving advice to improve human-robot interaction.

scholarly journals What Does It Mean to Empathise with a Robot?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna K. Malinowska
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Robotics ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Robot Interaction

AbstractGiven that empathy allows people to form and maintain satisfying social relationships with other subjects, it is no surprise that this is one of the most studied phenomena in the area of human–robot interaction (HRI). But the fact that the term ‘empathy’ has strong social connotations raises a question: can it be applied to robots? Can we actually use social terms and explanations in relation to these inanimate machines? In this article, I analyse the range of uses of the term empathy in the field of HRI studies and social robotics, and consider the substantial, functional and relational positions on this issue. I focus on the relational (cooperational) perspective presented by Luisa Damiano and Paul Dumouchel, who interpret emotions (together with empathy) as being the result of affective coordination. I also reflect on the criteria that should be used to determine when, in such relations, we are dealing with actual empathy.

scholarly journals Active Inference Through Energy Minimization in Multimodal Affective Human–Robot Interaction

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takato Horii ◽  
Yukie Nagai
Keyword(s):  
Energy Minimization ◽  
Information Gain ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Active Inference ◽  
Active Perception ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Multimodal Signals ◽  
Main Challenge

During communication, humans express their emotional states using various modalities (e.g., facial expressions and gestures), and they estimate the emotional states of others by paying attention to multimodal signals. To ensure that a communication robot with limited resources can pay attention to such multimodal signals, the main challenge involves selecting the most effective modalities among those expressed. In this study, we propose an active perception method that involves selecting the most informative modalities using a criterion based on energy minimization. This energy-based model can learn the probability of the network state using energy values, whereby a lower energy value represents a higher probability of the state. A multimodal deep belief network, which is an energy-based model, was employed to represent the relationships between the emotional states and multimodal sensory signals. Compared to other active perception methods, the proposed approach demonstrated improved accuracy using limited information in several contexts associated with affective human–robot interaction. We present the differences and advantages of our method compared to other methods through mathematical formulations using, for example, information gain as a criterion. Further, we evaluate performance of our method, as pertains to active inference, which is based on the free energy principle. Consequently, we establish that our method demonstrated superior performance in tasks associated with mutually correlated multimodal information.

Theory of Mind and Humanoid Robots From a Lifespan Perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 226 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonella Marchetti ◽  
Federico Manzi ◽  
Shoji Itakura ◽  
Davide Massaro
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Late Adulthood ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract. This review focuses on some relevant issues concerning the relationship between theory of mind (ToM) and humanoid robots. Humanoid robots are employed in different everyday-life contexts, so it seems relevant to question whether the relationships between human beings and humanoids can be characterized by a mode of interaction typical of the relationships between human beings, that is, the attribution of mental states. Because ToM development continuously undergoes changes from early childhood to late adulthood, we adopted a lifespan perspective. We analyzed contributions from the literature by organizing them around the partition between “mental states and actions” and “human-like features.” Finally, we considered how studying human–robot interaction, within a ToM context, can contribute to our understanding of the intersubjective nature of this interaction.

Special Issue on Human-Robot Interaction Systems II

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-659
Author(s):  
Tomomi Hashimoto ◽  
Yoshihito Kagawa ◽  
Yoshio Nishikawa
Keyword(s):  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Biped Robot ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
High Quality Research ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Communication Robot ◽  
Episodic Memories

Six years have passed since the publication of our Special Issue on Human-Robot Interaction Systems in 2011. Since then, artificial intelligence and robotics have developed rapidly, and the opportunities for human beings and robots to work together have increased. The objective of this special issue’s twelve articles is to activate and expand high-quality research.In the first article, Y. Tamura, T. Akashi, and H. Osumi propose a computational model of robot’s gaze. In the second article, S. Hoshino and K. Uchida propose an interactive motion planner for robot navigation in dynamic environments. In the third article, T. Iio, Y. Yoshikawa, and H. Ishiguro develop a conversational robotic system based on human response. In the fourth article, K. Sakai, F. Dalla Libera, Y. Yoshikawa, and H. Ishiguro propose a method for generating bystander robots’ actions that is based on an analysis of the relative probabilities of human responses to robot actions. In the fifth article, T. Matsumaru and M. Narita present a newly developed support system for learning calligraphy strokes. In the sixth article, E. Tamura, Y. Yamashita, T. Yamashita, E. Sato-Shimokawara, and T. Yamaguchi present a method of driving a car simply by gesturing. In the seventh article, A. Kurosu and T. Hashimoto develop an eye robot with two degrees of freedom. It is intended for use as a communication robot. In the eighth article, T. Hashimoto, Y. Munakata, R. Yamanaka, and A. Kurosu report on a method for retrieving episodic memories. In the ninth article, Y. Nishikawa, Y. Kagawa, and A. Okazaki develop a spiral movement robot for inpatients. In the tenth article, Y. Umesawa, K. Doi, and H. Fujimoto develop an interface device that creates kinaesthetic illusions by inducing vibrations in muscle tendons, vibrations that coordinate with dual-joint movements. In the eleventh article, R. Horio, N. Uchiyama, and S. Sano propose a human-operated biped robot for transporting objects over rough terrain or up steps. In the closing contribution, T. Sakuraba, N. Uchiyama, S. Sano, and T. Sakaguchi present the design of a spring-based regenerative brake, and they verify its effectiveness by driving a system that uses it.We thank the referees for their comprehensive reviews and the staff members of Fuji Technology Press, Ltd. for their encouragement and advice.

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