Robotic Faces: Exploring Dynamical Patterns of Social Interaction between Humans and Robots

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Indiana University, Informatics, 2015The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold: 1) to develop an empirically-based design for an interactive robotic face, and 2) to understand how dynamical aspects of social interaction may be leveraged to design better interactive technologies and/or further our understanding of social cognition. Understanding the role that dynamics plays in social cognition is a challenging problem. This is particularly true in studying cognition via human-robot interaction, which entails both the natural social cognition of the human and the “artificial intelligence” of the robot. Clearly, humans who are interacting with other humans (or even other mammals such as dogs) are cognizant of the social nature of the interaction – their behavior in those cases differs from that when interacting with inanimate objects such as tools. Humans (and many other animals) have some awareness of “social”, some sense of other agents. However, it is not clear how or why. Social interaction patterns vary across culture, context, and individual characteristics of the human interactor. These factors are subsumed into the larger interaction system, influencing the unfolding of the system over time (i.e. the dynamics). The overarching question is whether we can figure out how to utilize factors that influence the dynamics of the social interaction in order to imbue our interactive technologies (robots, clinical AI, decision support systems, etc.) with some "awareness of social", and potentially create more natural interaction paradigms for those technologies. In this work, we explore the above questions across a range of studies, including lab-based experiments, field observations, and placing autonomous, interactive robotic faces in public spaces. We also discuss future work, how this research relates to making sense of what a robot "sees", creating data-driven models of robot social behavior, and development of robotic face personalities

Digital media and storytelling in higher education

Anita Lanszki's book is about storytelling in the digital media environment. The enterprise is both classical in that it explores the nature of storytelling, which is found in all historical periods and human communities, and modern in that it undertakes a broad overview of contemporary digital culture from the perspective of storytelling. The book is also a methodological guide, illustrated with numerous examples, which has emerged organically from the author's many years of teaching experience. Although the title reflects a focus on the use of digital storytelling in various fields of higher education and research, this excellent work can also be used by professionals working in other spheres of education. Whatever our views on the digital space and age may be, we can probably all agree that we are witnessing a democratization of storytelling in our time. The insights in this book are therefore extremely useful for anyone who is interested in how the timeless practice of storytelling is adapting to the new media environment

The screen as boundary object in the realm of imagination

As an object at the boundary between virtual and physical reality, the screen exists both as a displayer and as a thing displayed, thus functioning as a mediator. The screen's virtual imagery produces a sense of immersion in its viewer, yet at the same time the materiality of the screen produces a sense of rejection from the viewer's complete involvement in the virtual world. The experience of the screen is thus an oscillation between these two states of immersion and rejection. Nowadays, as interactivity becomes a central component of the relationship between viewers and many artworks, the viewer experience of the screen is changing. Unlike the screen experience in non-interactive artworks, such as the traditional static screen of painting or the moving screen of video art in the 1970s, interactive media screen experiences can provide viewers with a more immersive, immediate, and therefore, more intense experience. For example, many digital media artworks provide an interactive experience for viewers by capturing their face or body though real-time computer vision techniques. In this situation, as the camera and the monitor in the artwork encapsulate the interactor's body in an instant feedback loop, the interactor becomes a part of the interface mechanism and responds to the artwork as the system leads or even provokes them. This thesis claims that this kind of direct mirroring in interactive screen-based media artworks does not allow the viewer the critical distance or time needed for self-reflection. The thesis examines the previous aesthetics of spatial and temporal perception, such as presentness and instantaneousness, and the notions of passage and of psychological perception such as reflection, reflexiveness and auratic experience, looking at how these aesthetics can be integrated into new media screen experiences. Based on this theoretical research, the thesis claims that interactive screen spaces can act as a site for expression and representation, both through a doubling effect between the physical and virtual worlds, and through manifold spatial and temporal mappings with the screen experience. These claims are further supported through exploration of screen-based media installations created by the author since 2003.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Mazalek, Ali; Committee Member: Bolter, Jay David; Committee Member: Do, Ellen Yi-Luen; Committee Member: Nitsche, Michael; Committee Member: Winegarden, Claudia R

Carrying others: A feminist materialist approach to research-creation

Everyone is connected and operates with or alongside a maternal structure. As psychologist Bracha L. Ettinger states, we all hold within us an imprint or memory of being carried — carried across landscapes, across time, into destinations unknown (Ettinger, 2006). This doctoral dissertation takes up these poetics through an interdisciplinary investigation of Feminist Materialist Research-Creation practices and strategies. Referencing recent traditions of Art Intervention, Performance Art, Land Art, and the canon of feminist art history, this research mirrors, connects with, and critiques digital imaginaries and considers how the maternal body responds to the agency of things in the world. This research makes a unique contribution to the humanities, feminist scholarship, and Research-Creation practices by exploring strategies and subjectivities, new positions of theorization, and analyses that unsettle contemporary approaches to artistic research. This includes a series of theoretical texts, experimental framing, and a portfolio of eight artworks that were individually and collaboratively created and produced between 2016–2019: Traces of Motherhood; Domestic Cupboards; Magical Beast: The Space Within, Out and In-Between, Hunting Self; Mothering Bacteria: The Body as an Interface; Floating in the In-Between; Carrying Others; and Nostalgic Geography: Mama and Papa have Trains, Orchards and Mountains in their Backyard. Showcased with the artwork are digital and technological ephemera, including curatorial conversations, exhibition and submission text, process documentation, links, posters, and other preparatory information. This document also introduces a series of interludes and refections that construct and demonstrate alternative ways of approaching the central ideas, themes, and methodological and theoretical ideas explored in the thesis. Cumulatively, these creative articulations foreground the complexities, process, and nuances of Feminist Materialist approaches to Research-Creation. This document also presents the three main themes which include: 1) Materiality; 2) the Optical Unconscious; and 3) the Technological Unconscious; and, take up the three salient concepts and theories: 1) Carriance; 2) Feminist Materialism; and, 3) Research-Creation. In particular, I argue that Carriance aligns with ideas of care, co-production and becomes a creative way of thinking about connection. Each of the eight artworks demonstrate aspects of Carriance, collaboration, and connection and present emergent ways to consider creative methods, methodologies, and expanded feminist expressions. By discussing a variety of projects and creative forms, this dissertation is a speculative art-making investigation that foregrounds human and non-human relationships, ecofeminist perspectives, and mothering, opening up the term Carriance in a variety of ways to show how it can be more than one method, form, or approach with much potential to challenge, encourage and elicit embodied ways of knowing

Investigating the influence of situations and expectations on user behavior : empirical analyses in human-robot interaction

Lohse M. Investigating the influence of situations and expectations on user behavior : empirical analyses in human-robot interaction. Bielefeld (Germany): Bielefeld University; 2010.Social sciences are becoming increasingly important for robotics research as work goes on to enable service robots to interact with inexperienced users. This endeavor can only be successful if the robots learn to interpret the users' behavior reliably and, in turn, provide feedback for the users, which enables them to understand the robot. In order to achieve this goal, the thesis introduces an approach to describe the interaction situation as a dynamic construct with different levels of specificity. The situation concept is the starting point for a model which aims to explain the users' behavior. The second important component of the model is the expectations of the users with respect to the robot. Both the situation and the expectations are shown to be the main determinants of the users' behaviors. With this theoretical background in mind, the thesis examines interactions from a home tour scenario in which a human teaches a robot about rooms and objects within them. To analyze the human expectations and behaviors in this situation, two main novel methods have been developed. In particular, a quantitative method for the analysis of the users' behavior repertoires (speech, gesture, eye gaze, body orientation, etc.) is introduced. The approach focuses on the interaction level, which describes the interplay between the robot and the user. In the second novel method, also the system level is taken into account, which includes the robot components and their interplay. This method serves for a detailed task analysis and helps to identify problems that occur in the interaction. By applying these methods, the thesis contributes to the identification of underlying expectations that allow future behavior of the users to be predicted in particular situations. Knowledge about the users' behavior repertoires serves as a cue for the robot about the state of the interaction and the task the users aim to accomplish. Therefore, it enables robot developers to adapt the interaction models of the components to the situation, actual user expectations, and behaviors. The work provides a deeper understanding of the role of expectations in human-robot interaction and contributes to the interaction and system design of interactive robots

Mind and Matter

Do brains create material reality in thinking processes or is it the other way around, with things shaping the mind? Where is the location of meaning-making? How do neural networks become established by means of multimodal pattern replications, and how are they involved in conceptualization? How are resonance textures within cellular entities extended in the body and the mind by means of mirroring processes? In which ways do they correlate to consciousness and self-consciousness? Is it possible to explain out-of-awareness unconscious processes? What holds together the relationship between experiential reality, bodily processes like memory, reason, or imagination, and sign-systems and simulation structures like metaphor and metonymy visible in human language? This volume attempts to answer some of these questions

The descent of Darwinism ( a philosophical critique of sociobiology)

The following thesis offers a philosophical critique of sociobiology, which is identified as a recent attempt to produce a general theory of animal behaviour, encompassing an account of human nature. The first chapter examines the empirical and theoretical foundations of sociobiology, highlighting some of the philosophical topics regarding the relation of the natural and social sciences, and the attempt to offer an account of human nature within a largely mathematical and mechanistic theoretical framework. Chapter two looks at the major specific areas of human behaviour featured in sociobiological accounts. A close examination of empirical evidence, underlying theoretical assumptions, behavioural categories and definitions, and finally deduced conclusions reveals several weaknesses and examples of fallacious reasoning. The third chapter continues to examine the account of human nature in relation to the broadest and most abstract features of social structures and interactions. The political dimension of sociobiology is examined - both in terms of its account of political behaviour, and in the theoretical opposition between sociobiology and left wing ideologies. The sociobiological account of religious behaviour is rejected in favour of one couched in terms of social rather than genetically heritable dispositions. Chapter four evaluates the attempt to respond to early criticisms of sociobiology. It is argued that the main theoretical stance regarding human behaviour remains little changed, and that the new theoretical models create even more conceptual problems, thus failing to provide a framework for an account of human nature. The final chapter applies some ideas from evolutionary theory to specific areas of philosophical controversy: the relation of mind to language; the ascription of mental life to other species; functionalist and epiphenomenaiist accounts of consciousness. It is argued that empirical and theoretical considerations from the natural sciences may thus inform traditional areas of philosophical debate, creating useful interdisciplinary dialogues