Affective Movement in Robotic Art: Alternatives to the ‘Interiority Paradigm’ in Social Robotics

This papercritically evaluates how emotional and intentional movement is conceptualisedand deployed in social robotics and provides an alternative by analysingcontemporary robotic artworks that deal with affective human-robot interaction(HRI). Within HRI, movement as a way of communicating emotions and intent hasbecome a topic of increased interest, which has made social robotics turn totheatre and dance due to the expertise of these fields in expressive movement.This paper will argue that social robotics’ way of using performative methodswith regards to emotional movement is, nonetheless, limited and carries certainchallenges.  These challenges aregrounded on the claim that social robotics participates in what the authorcalls an ‘interiority paradigm’. That is, movement is understood to be theexpression of inner, pre-determined states. The 'interiority paradigm' poses several challenges to the development of emotional movement, with regards to unaddressed human androbotic imaginaries, an emphasis in legibility and familiarity, and arestrictive interior/exterior binary that limits the role of movement in anaffective connection. As an example of how robotscould be imagined beyond this interiority paradigm, the author proposes to turnto contemporary robotic art.Robotic art’s view on affective movement as a matter of evocationand of performative co-creation might inspire the development of robots thatmove beyond the requirement of being mere copies of a human interiority.  While the intersection between robotics andthe performing arts is a fruitful field of research, the author argues in thispaper that the way in which movement is currently being developed throughperformative methods has certain shortcomings, and that the perspective of roboticart on affective movement might open up a more interesting area of explorationfor social robotics, as well as expose those aspects of theatre and dance thathave being unaddressed in robotics. 

Autism and Panpsychism: Putting process in mind

Panpsychism is a metaphysical framework around which science can understand the nature of subjective experience. Panpsychism affords a scientific view of mind and body as a coherent mind–body unity, with agentive purpose. Fundamental to minds is motor control, a core aspect that combines sensory experience, its evaluation in choice of agent action, and extension into the public expression of intentional movement. This primary mind–body process appears disturbed in autistic individuals. Empirical analysis of the spatiotemporal properties of intentional movement in autism shows a disruption to the efficient prospective integration and control of movement, a core aspect of mind. This paper examines the capacity of a panpsychist metaphysic to explain mind as fundamentally constituted by units of mind–body sensorimotor agency, which can be understood as the basic building blocks of embodied experience. The implications of a post-Cartesian metaphysic in scientific understanding of minds allows for deeper consideration of the role of movement in subjective experience, and its disturbance in autism as a disturbance to the organization of conscious sensorimotor experience and agency. It’s impact on modes of cognition and neural substrates is discussed.

Studying the sense of agency in the absence of motor movement: an investigation into temporal binding of tactile sensations and auditory effects

People form coherent representations of goal-directed actions. Such agency experiences of intentional action are reflected by a shift in temporal perception: self-generated motor movements and subsequent sensory effects are perceived to occur closer together in time—a phenomenon termed intentional binding. Building on recent research suggesting that temporal binding occurs without intentionally performing actions, we further examined whether such perceptual compression occurs when motor action is fully absent. In three experiments, we used a novel sensory-based adaptation of the Libet clock paradigm to assess how a brief tactile sensation on the index finger and a resulting auditory stimulus perceptually bind together in time. Findings revealed robust temporal repulsion (instead of binding) between tactile sensation and auditory effect. Temporal repulsion was attenuated when participants could anticipate the identity and temporal onset (two crucial components of intentional action) of the tactile sensation. These findings are briefly discussed in the context of differences between intentional movement and anticipated bodily sensations in shaping action coherence and agentic experiences.

Tremor assessment using smartphone sensor data and fuzzy reasoning

Background Tremor severity assessment is an important step for the diagnosis and treatment decision-making of essential tremor (ET) patients. Traditionally, tremor severity is assessed by using questionnaires (e.g., ETRS and QUEST surveys). In this work we assume the possibility of assessing tremor severity using sensor data and computerized analyses. The goal of this work is to assess severity of tremor objectively, to be better able to asses improvement in ET patients due to deep brain stimulation or other treatments. Methods We collect tremor data by strapping smartphones to the wrists of ET patients. The resulting raw sensor data is then pre-processed to remove any artifact due to patient’s intentional movement. Finally, this data is exploited to automatically build a transparent, interpretable, and succinct fuzzy model for the severity assessment of ET. For this purpose, we exploit pyFUME, a tool for the data-driven estimation of fuzzy models. It leverages the FST-PSO swarm intelligence meta-heuristic to identify optimal clusters in data, reducing the possibility of a premature convergence in local minima which would result in a sub-optimal model. pyFUME was also combined with GRABS, a novel methodology for the automatic simplification of fuzzy rules. Results Our model is able to assess tremor severity of patients suffering from Essential Tremor, notably without the need for subjective questionnaires nor interviews. The fuzzy model improves the mean absolute error (MAE) metric by 78–81% compared to linear models and by 71–74% compared to a model based on decision trees. Conclusion This study confirms that tremor data gathered using the smartphones is useful for the constructing of machine learning models that can be used to support the diagnosis and monitoring of patients who suffer from Essential Tremor. The model produced by our methodology is easy to inspect and, notably, characterized by a lower error with respect to approaches based on linear models or decision trees.

Autism and Panpsychism: Putting Process in Mind

Panpsychism is a metaphysical framework around which science can understand the nature of subjective experience. It affords a scientific view of mind and body as a coherent mindâ–“body unity, with agentive purpose. Fundamental to minds is motor control, a core aspect that combines sensory experience, its evaluation in choice of agent action, and extension into the public expression of intentional movement. This primary mindâ–“body process appears disturbed in autistic individuals. Empirical analysis of the spatio-temporal properties of intentional movement in autism shows a disruption to the efficient prospective integration and control of movement, a core aspect of mind. This paper examines the capacity of a panpsychist metaphysic to explain mind as fundamentally constituted by units of mindâ–“body sensorimotor agency, which can be understood as the basic building blocks of embodied experience. The implications of a post-Cartesian metaphysic in scientific understanding of minds allows for deeper consideration of the role of movement in subjective experience, and its disturbance in autism as a disturbance to the organization of conscious sensorimotor experience and agency. It's impact on modes of cognition and neural substrates is discussed.

Active proportional electromyogram controlled functional electrical stimulation system

Neurophysiological theories and past studies suggest that intention driven functional electrical stimulation (FES) could be effective in motor neurorehabilitation. Proportional control of FES using voluntary EMG may be used for this purpose. Electrical artefact contamination of voluntary electromyogram (EMG) during FES application makes the technique difficult to implement. Previous attempts to date either poorly extract the voluntary EMG from the artefacts, require a special hardware or are unsuitable for online application. Here we show an implementation of an entirely software-based solution that resolves the current problems in real-time using an adaptive filtering technique with an optional comb filter to extract voluntary EMG from muscles under FES. We demonstrated that unlike the classic comb filter approach, the signal extracted with the present technique was coherent with its noise-free version. Active FES, the resulting EMG-FES system was validated in a typical use case among fifteen patients with tetraplegia. Results showed that FES intensity modulated by the Active FES system was proportional to intentional movement. The Active FES system may inspire further research in neurorehabilitation and assistive technology.

Fifteen ways of looking at a pointing gesture

The human pointing gesture may be viewed from many angles. On a neutral description, it is an intentional movement, often of the hand, by which one person tries to direct another’s attention—it is, in short, a bodily command to look. But this bland definition is only a start. Pointing may also be seen as a semiotic primitive, a philosophical puzzle, a communicative workhorse, a protean universal, a social tool, a widespread taboo, a partner of language, a part of language, a fixture of art, a graphical icon, a cognitive prop, a developmental milestone, a diagnostic window, a cross-species litmus test, and an evolutionary stepping-stone. These fifteen ways of looking highlight the diverse dimensions of one our most unassuming, ubiquitous behaviors. Pointing appears so widely, and in so many guises, because of what it embodies: a distinctively human preoccupation with attention.

Verbs of falling in Tigrinya

The paper gives a survey of verbs of falling in Tigrinya (an Ethio-Semitic language spoken in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia). The employment of each verb related to the situation of falling down is illustrated with phrasal examples. The Tigrinya data is further compared with Geez, a closely related extinct language. A special subsection deals with metaphorical use of the basic verb ‘to fall’ in Tigrinya. Tigrinya possesses one basic verb of falling, wädäḳä, which is applied to describe the downward movement of a solid object through the air or a loss of vertical position of a vertically oriented object. Falling of a solid, heavy object, either through the air or, less typically, along an oblique surface, can also be referred to by a special verb ṣädäfä. In all situations deviating from this default situation of falling in Tigrinya, special verbs are employed. Thus, the verbs tägälbäṭä ‘to be overturned, to topple’ or tägämṭälä ‘to be turned over’ are used to describe the situation of toppling, overturning which does not involve physical falling from a higher level to a lower one. Detachment of an object which had been fi rmly fi xed to another object, is usually denoted by the verb moläḳä ‘to slip off ; to become detached’. Falling to pieces of buildings or other built structures is described by the special verbs färäsä ‘to collapse, crumble, to fall’ or ʕanäwä ‘to collapse’ (but ṣädäfä can also be used in such contexts). Detachment of parts of body or plants due to natural reasons is denoted by the special verb rägäfä ‘to fall off (leaves), to break off , break loose (fruit, leaf), to shed a coat (livestock)’ (although the physical falling which is caused by such a detachment can well be described by the verb wädäḳä ‘to fall’). Furthermore, with respect to teeth, a special verb goräfä ‘to lose milk teeth, to have one’s tooth pulled out’ is used, with the possessor of the tooth encoded as the subject, and the tooth itself, as the object. Downward movement of liquids is denoted by a wide range of verbs, such as wäḥazä ‘to fl ow’, näṭäbä ‘to fall in drops, to drop (water), to drip (water)’, fäsäsä ‘to be spilled, poured (out) (water, grain, etc.), to fl ow (liquid, stream), to run (water), to fall (water)’, ṣärär bälä ‘to ooze, exude’, läḥakʷä ‘to drip, run (water along a wall after leaking through a roof), lo leak, to seep, fi lter through (intransitive)’. The verb wärädä ‘to descend’ is also used to describe the movement of liquids from a higher level to the lower. Spilling of granular material is denoted by fäsäsä ‘to be spilled, poured (out) (water, grain, etc.)’. Rolling down is denoted by the verb ʔankoraräyä/ʔankoraräwä ‘to roll’. Downward movement in water is described by the verb ṭäḥalä ‘to sink, to submerge’. Intentional losing of vertical position is described by the verb bäṭṭ bälä ‘to lie down’,and intentional movement from a higher level to the lower is described by wärädä ‘to descend’. The metaphors of falling include the employment of the verb wädäḳä to describe an abrupt, unexpected (and often unpleasant) change. This involves decrease in a measure, loss of interest, the destruction of a social power, arriving of a sudden calamity. A separate group of metaphorical employment is the verb wädäḳä as the standard predicate of such nouns as “lottery” and “lot”, presumably by extension from the situation of dice falling to the ground. Finally, death in battle is also denoted by the verb wädäḳä. The Geez cognate of wädäḳä likewise functions as the basic verb ‘to fall’, whose employment is very similar to, although not identical with, its Tigrinya equivalent. Similarly, Geez ṣadfa does not display any signifi cant diff erence from Tigrinya ṣädäfä in its semantics and usage.

Attribution of mental states in glossolalia: a direct comparison with schizophrenia

Glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”) is a rhythmic utterance of pseudo-words without constant semantic and syntactic properties. Although glossolalia is a culturally embedded religious activity, its connection with psychopathology (e.g., psychotic thought disorder, and altered mental state attribution) is still a matter of debate. We investigated 31 glossolalists, 31 matched control subjects, and 31 patients with schizophrenia using the Animated Triangles Test (ATT) and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). The ATT can detect hypo- and hypermentalization using animations of two moving triangles. Healthy adults describe these as random movements (e.g., bouncing), willed actions (e.g., playing), or they mentalize (e.g., tricking). We found that glossolalists provided more mentalizing descriptions in the ATT random and intentional movement animations relative to the control subjects. They also recognized more mental states on the RMET than the controls. None of them had a diagnosis of mental disorders. In contrast, patients with schizophrenia hypermentalized only in the ATT random movement condition, whereas they showed hypomentalization in the intentional movement condition and RMET relative the control subjects. ATT hypermentalization in the glossolalia group selectively correlated with intrinsic religiosity. Our results therefore demonstrated a substantial difference in the mentalizing activity of glossolalists (generalized hypermentalization) and patients with schizophrenia (both hypo- and hypermentalization).