Different discussions on roboethics and information ethics based on different contexts (BA). Discussions on robots, informatics and life in the information era in Japanese\ud bulletin board forums and mass media

In this paper, I will analyze „what sort of invisible reasons lie behind differences of discussions on roboethics and IE (Information Ethics) in Japan and “Western” cultures‟, focusing on (1) the recent trends of researches in roboethics in „Western‟ cultures, (2) the tendencies of portrayal of robots, ICTs, Informatics, life in the information era reflected in news papers reports and talks on BBSs in Japan. As we will see in this paper, Japanese people have difficulty in understanding some of the key concepts used in the fields of roboethics and IE (Information Ethics) such as „autonomy‟ or „responsibility (of robots)‟,etc. This difficulty appears to derive from different types of discussions based on of different cultural contexts (Ba) in which the majority of people in each culture are provided with a certain sort of shared/ normalized frames of narratives. In my view and according to some Japanese critics or authors, senses of „reality‟ of Japanese people are strongly related with "emotional sensitivity to things/persons/events in life" or "direct-non>mediated-intuitive\ud awareness/knowing" (Izutsu, 2001). These tendencies in Japanese minds seem to influence their limited interest in the "abstract" discussions as well\ud as in straightforward emotional expressions with regard to robots and ICTs

Perceiving Sociable Technology: Exploring the Role of Anthropomorphism and Agency Perception on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

With the arrival of personal assistants and other AI-enabled autonomous technologies, social interactions with smart devices have become a part of our daily lives. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to understand how these social interactions emerge, and why users appear to be influenced by them. For this reason, I explore questions on what the antecedents and consequences of this phenomenon, known as anthropomorphism, are as described in the extant literature from fields ranging from information systems to social neuroscience. I critically analyze those empirical studies directly measuring anthropomorphism and those referring to it without a corresponding measurement. Through a grounded theory approach, I identify common themes and use them to develop models for the antecedents and consequences of anthropomorphism. The results suggest anthropomorphism possesses both conscious and non-conscious components with varying implications. While conscious attributions are shown to vary based on individual differences, non-conscious attributions emerge whenever a technology exhibits apparent reasoning such as through non-verbal behavior like peer-to-peer mirroring or verbal paralinguistic and backchanneling cues. Anthropomorphism has been shown to affect users’ self-perceptions, perceptions of the technology, how users interact with the technology, and the users’ performance. Examples include changes in a users’ trust on the technology, conformity effects, bonding, and displays of empathy. I argue these effects emerge from changes in users’ perceived agency, and their self- and social- identity similarly to interactions between humans. Afterwards, I critically examine current theories on anthropomorphism and present propositions about its nature based on the results of the empirical literature. Subsequently, I introduce a two-factor model of anthropomorphism that proposes how an individual anthropomorphizes a technology is dependent on how the technology was initially perceived (top-down and rational or bottom-up and automatic), and whether it exhibits a capacity for agency or experience. I propose that where a technology lays along this spectrum determines how individuals relates to it, creating shared agency effects, or changing the users’ social identity. For this reason, anthropomorphism is a powerful tool that can be leveraged to support future interactions with smart technologies

Explorations in engagement for humans and robots

This paper explores the concept of engagement, the process by which individuals in an interaction start, maintain and end their perceived connection to one another. The paper reports on one aspect of engagement among human interactors--the effect of tracking faces during an interaction. It also describes the architecture of a robot that can participate in conversational, collaborative interactions with engagement gestures. Finally, the paper reports on findings of experiments with human participants who interacted with a robot when it either performed or did not perform engagement gestures. Results of the human-robot studies indicate that people become engaged with robots: they direct their attention to the robot more often in interactions where engagement gestures are present, and they find interactions more appropriate when engagement gestures are present than when they are not.Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures, 3 table

Proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET 2013)

"This book contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET) 2013 which was held on 16.-17.September 2013 in Paphos (Cyprus) in conjunction with the EC-TEL conference. The workshop and hence the proceedings are divided in two parts: on Day 1 the EuroPLOT project and its results are introduced, with papers about the specific case studies and their evaluation. On Day 2, peer-reviewed papers are presented which address specific topics and issues going beyond the EuroPLOT scope. This workshop is one of the deliverables (D 2.6) of the EuroPLOT project, which has been funded from November 2010 – October 2013 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLL) by grant #511633. The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate Persuasive Learning Objects and Technologies (PLOTS), based on ideas of BJ Fogg. The purpose of this workshop is to summarize the findings obtained during this project and disseminate them to an interested audience. Furthermore, it shall foster discussions about the future of persuasive technology and design in the context of learning, education and teaching. The international community working in this area of research is relatively small. Nevertheless, we have received a number of high-quality submissions which went through a peer-review process before being selected for presentation and publication. We hope that the information found in this book is useful to the reader and that more interest in this novel approach of persuasive design for teaching/education/learning is stimulated. We are very grateful to the organisers of EC-TEL 2013 for allowing to host IWEPLET 2013 within their organisational facilities which helped us a lot in preparing this event. I am also very grateful to everyone in the EuroPLOT team for collaborating so effectively in these three years towards creating excellent outputs, and for being such a nice group with a very positive spirit also beyond work. And finally I would like to thank the EACEA for providing the financial resources for the EuroPLOT project and for being very helpful when needed. This funding made it possible to organise the IWEPLET workshop without charging a fee from the participants.

The influence of social cues in persuasive social robots on psychological reactance and compliance

People can react negatively to persuasive attempts experiencing reactance, which gives rise to negative feelings and thoughts and may reduce compliance. This research examines social responses towards persuasive social agents. We present a laboratory experiment which assessed reactance and compliance to persuasive attempts delivered by an artificial (non-robotic) social agent, a social robot with minimal social cues (human-like face with speech output and blinking eyes), and a social robot with enhanced social cues (human-like face with head movement, facial expression, affective intonation of speech output). Our results suggest that a social robot presenting more social cues will cause higher reactance and this effect is stronger when the user feels involved in the task at hand

Extending the Affective Technology Acceptance Model to Human-Robot Interactions: A Multi-Method Perspective

The current study sought to extend the Affective Technology Acceptance (ATA) model to human-robot interactions. We tested the direct relationship between affect and technology acceptance of a security robot. Affect was measured using a multi-method approach, which included a self-report survey, as well as sentiment analysis, and response length of written responses. Results revealed that participants who experienced positive affect were more likely to accept technology. However, the significance and direction of the relationship between negative affect and technology acceptance was measurement dependent. Additionally, positive and negative sentiment words accounted for unique variance in technology acceptance, after controlling for self-reported affect. This study demonstrates that affect is an important contributing factor in human-robot interaction research, and using a multi-method approach allows for a richer, more complete understanding of how human feelings influence robot acceptance

An Exploratory Study to Determine the Effects Conversational Repetition Has on Perceived Workload and User Experience Quality in an Online Human-Robot Interaction

Human-robot interaction studies in the Caribbean currently face two challenges. First, the robots used in these studies have difficulty understanding many of the regional accents spoken study participants. Secondly, the global pandemic has made in-person HRI studies in the Caribbean more challenging due to the physical and social distancing mandates. This paper reports on our exploratory study to determine what kind of impact these two challenges have on HRI by evaluating the effect conversational repetition has on a human-robot conversation done using video conferencing software. Using network analysis, the results obtained suggest that conversational repetition has several subtle relationships on perceived workload. One interesting finding is that frustration and effort are indirectly affected by conversational repetition. Results from the short User Experience Questionnaire indicate that the overall quality of the user experience is perceived as positive-neutral. This encouraging result indicates that video conferencing may be a suitable interaction modality for HRI studies in the Caribbean

Designing and Implementing Embodied Agents: Learning from Experience

In this paper, we provide an overview of part of our experience in designing and implementing some of the embodied agents and talking faces that we have used for our research into human computer interaction. We focus on the techniques that were used and evaluate this with respect to the purpose that the agents and faces were to serve and the costs involved in producing and maintaining the software. We discuss the function of this research and development in relation to the educational programme of our graduate students