Robot-Mediated Interviews with Children : What do potential users think?

Luke Wood, Hagen Lehmann, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ben Robins, Austen Rayner, and Dag Syrdal, ‘Robot-Mediated Interviews with Children: What do potential users think?’, paper presented at the 50th Annual Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour, 1 April 2014 – 4 April 2014, London, UK.When police officers are conducting interviews with children, some of the disclosures can be quite shocking. This can make it difficult for an officer to maintain their composure without subtly indicating their shock to the child, which can in turn impede the information acquisition process. Using a robotic interviewer could eliminate this problem as the behaviours and expressions of the robot can be consciously controlled. To date research investigating the potential of Robot-Mediated Interviews has focused on establishing whether children will respond to robots in an interview scenario and if so how well. The results of these studies indicate that children will talk to a robot in an interview scenario in a similar way to which they talk to a human interviewer. However, in order to test if this approach would work in a real world setting, it is important to establish what the experts (e.g. specialist child interviewers) would require from the system. To determine the needs of the users we conducted a user panel with a group of potential real world users to gather their views of our current system and find out what they would require for the system to be useful to them. The user group we worked with consisted of specialist child protection police officers based in the UK. The findings from this panel suggest that a Robot-Mediated Interviewing system would need to be more flexible than our current system in order to respond to unpredictable situations and paths of investigation. This paper gives an insight into what real world users would need from a Robot-Mediated Interviewing system

The evolution of japanese robotics: from the beginning to the newest tendencies

Treballs Finals del Grau d'Empresa Internacional, Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2017-2018 , Tutor: Gemma Garcia Brosa(eng) This study will go through the robotics sector of Japan. It will show when the robots in concept arrived in Japan and its evolution through history and the rise of it as a robotics superpower, with historical and economic data. It will also discuss the presence of robots in cultural aspects of Japan and the reasons of the good relationship between Japanese citizens and their creations. By the ending, the worrisome future scheme for Japan will be shown and the response of Japan’s government as well as its companies to counteract this situation with the usage of robots.(cat) Aquest treball estarà enfocat en el sector de la robòtica al Japó. Es mostrarà quan el concepte de robot va arribar al Japó i la seva evolució durant la historia, amb dades històriques i econòmiques. També es parlarà de la presència dels robots en el àmbit cultural japonès i les raons de la acceptació entre japonesos i les seves creacions. Per finalitzar es tractarà del seu preocupant futur en termes de població i com s’encararà aquest problema per part del govern japonès i de les seves empreses amb la utilització de robots

What do Collaborations with the Arts Have to Say About Human-Robot Interaction?

This is a collection of papers presented at the workshop What Do Collaborations with the Arts Have to Say About HRI , held at the 2010 Human-Robot Interaction Conference, in Osaka, Japan

Robot-Mediated Interviews with Children: What do potential users think?

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Interaction Studies following peer review. Luke Jai Wood, Hagen Lehmann, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Ben Robins, Austen Rainer, and Dag Syrdal, 'Robot-mediated interviews with children: What do potential users think?', Interaction Studies, Vol. 17 (3): 438-460 (2016), DOI: 10.1075/is.17.3.07woo This article is under copyright and the publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use or reprint the material in any form. Publisher: John Benjamin Publishing CompanyTo date research investigating the potential of Robot-Mediated Interviews (RMI) has focused on establishing how children respond to robots in an interview scenario. In order to test if an RMI approach would work in a real world setting, it is important to establish what the experts (e.g. specialist child interviewers) would require from such a system. To determine the needs of such expert users we conducted three user panels with groups of potential real world users to gather their views of our current system and find out what they would require for the system to be useful to them. The user groups consisted of specialist police officers, intermediaries, educational specialists and healthcare specialists. To our knowledge this is the first article investigating user needs for Robot-Mediated Interviews. Due to the novelty of this work, the work presented in this paper is exploratory in nature. The results provide valuable insights into what real world users would need from a Robot-Mediated Interviewing system. Our findings will contribute to future research and technology development in the domain of RMI in particular, and child-robot interaction in general.Peer reviewe

Machine Performers: Agents in a Multiple Ontological State

In this thesis, the author explores and develops new attributes for machine performers and merges the trans-disciplinary fields of the performing arts and artificial intelligence. The main aim is to redefine the term “embodiment” for robots on the stage and to demonstrate that this term requires broadening in various fields of research. This redefining has required a multifaceted theoretical analysis of embodiment in the field of artificial intelligence (e.g. the uncanny valley), as well as the construction of new robots for the stage by the author. It is hoped that these practical experimental examples will generate more research by others in similar fields. Even though the historical lineage of robotics is engraved with theatrical strategies and dramaturgy, further application of constructive principles from the performing arts and evidence from psychology and neurology can shift the perception of robotic agents both on stage and in other cultural environments. In this light, the relation between representation, movement and behaviour of bodies has been further explored to establish links between constructed bodies (as in artificial intelligence) and perceived bodies (as performers on the theatrical stage). In the course of this research, several practical works have been designed and built, and subsequently presented to live audiences and research communities. Audience reactions have been analysed with surveys and discussions. Interviews have also been conducted with choreographers, curators and scientists about the value of machine performers. The main conclusions from this study are that fakery and mystification can be used as persuasive elements to enhance agency. Morphologies can also be applied that tightly couple brain and sensorimotor actions and lead to a stronger stage presence. In fact, if this lack of presence is left out of human replicants, it causes an “uncanny” lack of agency. Furthermore, the addition of stage presence leads to stronger identification from audiences, even for bodies dissimilar to their own. The author demonstrates that audience reactions are enhanced by building these effects into machine body structures: rather than identification through mimicry, this causes them to have more unambiguously biological associations. Alongside these traits, atmospheres such as those created by a cast of machine performers tend to cause even more intensely visceral responses. In this thesis, “embodiment” has emerged as a paradigm shift – as well as within this shift – and morphological computing has been explored as a method to deepen this visceral immersion. Therefore, this dissertation considers and builds machine performers as “true” performers for the stage, rather than mere objects with an aura. Their singular and customized embodiment can enable the development of non-anthropocentric performances that encompass the abstract and conceptual patterns in motion and generate – as from human performers – empathy, identification and experiential reactions in live audiences

A Collaborative Authoring Workspace and Script-Based Control Platform for Heterogeneous Robots

A collaborative script authoring and control platform for multiple heterogeneous robots is developed. The developed platform consists of a remote sever providing a graphic user interface (GUI) authoring tool, and a local control platform controlling a group of heterogeneous robots by interpreting the designated scripts. Designed to encourage impromptu creativity among programming students in class, this Web-based authoring tool fosters collaborative creativity in the authorship of command scripts. The architecture of the local controller is composed of an embedded system for controlling the movement of robotic puppets, and a management server for the synchronization of live shows. Post-activity assessment indicates that the proposed platform provides strong support and encouragement for interactive robot learning in curriculum training and evaluation

Socially assistive robots for people with dementia: systematic review and meta-analysis of feasibility, acceptability and the effect on cognition, neuropsychiatric symptoms and quality of life

BACKGROUND: There is increasing interest in using robots to support dementia care but little consensus on the evidence for their use. The aim of the study is to review evidence about feasibility, acceptability and clinical effectiveness of socially assistive robots used for people with dementia. METHOD: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychINFO, CINHAL, IEEE Xplore Digital Library, and EI Engineering Village from inception to 04 -02-2022 - included primary studies assessing feasibility, acceptability, or effectiveness of socially assistive robots for people with dementia. Two independent reviewers screened studies for eligibility, and assessed quality. Narrative synthesis prioritized higher quality studies, and random-effect meta-analyses compared robots with usual care (UC) or active control (AC) immediately after the intervention (short-term; ST) or long-term (LT) on cognition, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and quality of life. FINDINGS: 66 studies and four categories of robots were eligible: Companion robots (Pet and humanoid companion robots), telepresence communication robots, homecare assistive robots and multifunctional robots. PARO (companion robot seal) was feasible and acceptable but limited by its weight, cost, and sound. On meta-analysis, PARO had no ST or LT compared to UC or AC over 5-12 weeks on agitation (ST vs UC, 4 trials, 153 participants: pooled standardized mean difference (SMD) 0.25; -0.57 to 0.06; LT vs UC; 2 trials, 77 participants, SMD =-0.24; -0.94, 0.46), cognition (ST vs UC, 3 trials, 128 participants: SMD= 0.03; -0.32, 0.38), overall neuropsychiatric symptoms (ST vs UC, 3 trials, 169 participants: SMD= -0.01; -0.32, 0.29; ST vs AC, 2 trials, 145 participants: SMD =0.02, -0.71, 0.85), apathy (ST vs AC, 2 trials, 81 participants: SMD= 0.14; 0.29, 0.58), depression (ST vs UC, 4 trials, 181 participants; SMD= 0.08; -0.52, 0.69; LT vs UC: 2 trials, 77 participants: SMD =0.01; -0.75, 0.77), anxiety (ST vs UC: 2 trials, 104 participants, SMD= 0.24; -0.85, 1.33) and quality of life (ST vs UC, 2 trials, 127 participants: SMD=-0.05; -0.52, 0.42; ST vs AC: 2 trials, 159 participants, SMD =-0.36, -0.76, 0.05). Robotic animals, humanoid companion robots, telepresence robots and multifunctional robots were feasible and acceptable. However, humanoid companion robots have speech recognition problems, and telepresence robots and multifunctional robots were often difficult to use. There was mixed evidence about the feasibility of homecare robots. There was little evidence on any of these robots' effectiveness. CONCLUSION: Although robots were generally feasible and acceptable, there is no clear evidence that people with dementia derive benefit from robots for cognition, neuropsychiatric symptoms, or quality of life. We recommend that future research should use high quality designs to establish evidence of effectiveness

Effect of repeated exposure of a humanoid robot on children with autism - Can we encourage basic social interaction skills

This work is part of the Aurora project which investigates the possible use of robots in therapy and education of children with autism (Aurora 2003), based on findings that people with autism enjoy interacting with computers, e.g. (Powell, 1996). In most of our trials we have been using mobile robots, e.g. (Dautenhahn and Werry, 2002). More recently we tested the use of a humanoid robotic doll. In (Dautenhahn and Billard, 2002) we reported on a first set of trials with 14 autistic subjects interacting with this doll. In this paper we discuss lessons learnt from our previous study, and introduce a new approach, heavily inspired by therapeutic issues. A longitudinal study with four children with autism is presented. The children were repeatedly exposed to the humanoid robot over a period of several months. Our aim was to encourage imitation and social interaction skills. Different behavioural criteria (including Eye Gaze, Touch, and Imitation) were evaluated based on the video data of the interactions. The paper exemplifies the results that clearly demo nstrate the crucial need for long-term studies in order to reveal the full potential of robots in therapy and education of children with autism

Development of the huggable social robot Probo: on the conceptual design and software architecture

This dissertation presents the development of a huggable social robot named Probo. Probo embodies a stuffed imaginary animal, providing a soft touch and a huggable appearance. Probo's purpose is to serve as a multidisciplinary research platform for human-robot interaction focused on children. In terms of a social robot, Probo is classified as a social interface supporting non-verbal communication. Probo's social skills are thereby limited to a reactive level. To close the gap with higher levels of interaction, an innovative system for shared control with a human operator is introduced. The software architecture de nes a modular structure to incorporate all systems into a single control center. This control center is accompanied with a 3D virtual model of Probo, simulating all motions of the robot and providing a visual feedback to the operator. Additionally, the model allows us to advance on user-testing and evaluation of newly designed systems. The robot reacts on basic input stimuli that it perceives during interaction. The input stimuli, that can be referred to as low-level perceptions, are derived from vision analysis, audio analysis, touch analysis and object identification. The stimuli will influence the attention and homeostatic system, used to de ne the robot's point of attention, current emotional state and corresponding facial expression. The recognition of these facial expressions has been evaluated in various user-studies. To evaluate the collaboration of the software components, a social interactive game for children, Probogotchi, has been developed. To facilitate interaction with children, Probo has an identity and corresponding history. Safety is ensured through Probo's soft embodiment and intrinsic safe actuation systems. To convey the illusion of life in a robotic creature, tools for the creation and management of motion sequences are put into the hands of the operator. All motions generated from operator triggered systems are combined with the motions originating from the autonomous reactive systems. The resulting motion is subsequently smoothened and transmitted to the actuation systems. With future applications to come, Probo is an ideal platform to create a friendly companion for hospitalised children