How to Include Humanoid Robots into Experimental Research: A Multi-Step Approach

Robots have penetrated many areas of daily life, including increased uses of humanoid robots in personal and organizational settings such as health care, eldercare, and service encounters with customers. Little research examines humanoid robots in these professional settings, even though the human-robot interaction (HRI) is particularly critical in such contexts. On the basis of a literature review and experience from several experimental studies, this article offers some guidance for designing HRI experiments with humanoid robots. In addition to detailing major challenges associated with designing HRI studies, this article suggests important next steps for experimental research with humanoid robots, as well as implications for further study

Hi-Tek Learning Strategies

Unorthodox ways currently used in colleges to accelerate the velocity of learning are reviewed. To augment persuasion and articulation ability of business school students, stand-up comedy is used (University of Chicago). Song writing, storytelling and improvisation (VanderbiltUniversity-Owens Management), and for Shakespearean motivation for other management skills at the corporate execu-tive level (Northrup Grumman). Food “chow-down”, before and during classes, including pizza and chocolate candy, for relaxation and memory stimulation. The aromatherapy path to the learning, the path of music and subliminal sound---Mozart effect and silent sound--and other sensory aids and teaching techniques to activate all the senses for learning-Key for three, but strive for five!. Other learning techniques include Selman’s Universal Method (SUM) of breaking large problems into manageable parts or patches, his MEDICASA model and a platoon system of participatory responses---all demonstrating skills, motor and sensory. Another approach is to have abstract ideas in the sciences translated into physical learning aids, or robotic device, or toys----where the kernel of the analogies can be retained for comprehending different situations in the present, and for future metaphors. Learning can be reinforced in many ways. But learning with-out play is difficult---grim and boring presentations. It may be the major failing of our educa-tional system; especially, as training for persuasive communication skills. This paper asks---What if it were possible to transfer information and improve communication without the circuitous paths of present ways of teaching? What if a teacher could guide a student beyond the normal capacity of his/her mind by "broad-casting" over the natural defense mechanism of the unused 90% of the brain

Choreographic and Somatic Approaches for the Development of Expressive Robotic Systems

As robotic systems are moved out of factory work cells into human-facing environments questions of choreography become central to their design, placement, and application. With a human viewer or counterpart present, a system will automatically be interpreted within context, style of movement, and form factor by human beings as animate elements of their environment. The interpretation by this human counterpart is critical to the success of the system's integration: knobs on the system need to make sense to a human counterpart; an artificial agent should have a way of notifying a human counterpart of a change in system state, possibly through motion profiles; and the motion of a human counterpart may have important contextual clues for task completion. Thus, professional choreographers, dance practitioners, and movement analysts are critical to research in robotics. They have design methods for movement that align with human audience perception, can identify simplified features of movement for human-robot interaction goals, and have detailed knowledge of the capacity of human movement. This article provides approaches employed by one research lab, specific impacts on technical and artistic projects within, and principles that may guide future such work. The background section reports on choreography, somatic perspectives, improvisation, the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System, and robotics. From this context methods including embodied exercises, writing prompts, and community building activities have been developed to facilitate interdisciplinary research. The results of this work is presented as an overview of a smattering of projects in areas like high-level motion planning, software development for rapid prototyping of movement, artistic output, and user studies that help understand how people interpret movement. Finally, guiding principles for other groups to adopt are posited.Comment: Under review at MDPI Arts Special Issue "The Machine as Artist (for the 21st Century)" http://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special_issues/Machine_Artis

Socially assistive robots : the specific case of the NAO

Numerous researches have studied the development of robotics, especially socially assistive robots (SAR), including the NAO robot. This small humanoid robot has a great potential in social assistance. The NAO robot’s features and capabilities, such as motricity, functionality, and affective capacities, have been studied in various contexts. The principal aim of this study is to gather every research that has been done using this robot to see how the NAO can be used and what could be its potential as a SAR. Articles using the NAO in any situation were found searching PSYCHINFO, Computer and Applied Sciences Complete and ACM Digital Library databases. The main inclusion criterion was that studies had to use the NAO robot. Studies comparing it with other robots or intervention programs were also included. Articles about technical improvements were excluded since they did not involve concrete utilisation of the NAO. Also, duplicates and articles with an important lack of information on sample were excluded. A total of 51 publications (1895 participants) were included in the review. Six categories were defined: social interactions, affectivity, intervention, assisted teaching, mild cognitive impairment/dementia, and autism/intellectual disability. A great majority of the findings are positive concerning the NAO robot. Its multimodality makes it a SAR with potential

The Natural Way To Learn: Learn Without Learning

Natural learning ways currently used to accelerate the velocity of learning are reviewed, including Selman’s MEDICASA model with his platoon system of participatory responses---all demonstrating innovative multi-sensory, multi-learning skills.  To augment persuasion and articulation ability of business school students, stand-up comedy is used (University of Chicago).  Song writing, storytelling and improvisation (Vanderbilt University-Owens Management), and for Shakespearean motivation for other management skills at the corporate executive level (Northrup Grumman).  Food “chow-down”, before and during classes, including pizzas, soyburgers and chocolate candy, for relaxation and memory stimulation and retention.  The aromatherapy path to soft learning, the path of music and subliminal sound--Mozart effect and silent sound--and other multi-sensory aids and teaching techniques to activate all the senses for learning---Key for three senses, but strive for five!  Other learning techniques include Selman’s Universal Method (SUM) of breaking large problems into manageable parts or patches.  His MEDICASA Model for developing models for multi-learning in various venues will be demonstrated. Another approach is to have abstract ideas in the sciences translated into physical learning aids, or robotic device, or toys--- where the kernel of the analogies can be retained for comprehending differing situations in the present, and for future metaphors.  Learning aids, toys, robotic devices and simulation techniques will be explored for state-of-the-art reinforcement of ideas and innovative concepts at this point in time.  When Al Gross (a.k.a. Phineas Thaddeus Veeblefetzer) passed away at the end of the last millennium, the gizmos he designed and had patented---just for the fun of it!-- like Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist radio, the walkie-talkie, and other wireless wonders still have a revered resting place in the heart of our fun memories.  Learning can be reinforced in many ways.  But learning without play is difficult, grim and boring presentations.  It may be the major failing of our educational system

Attribution of Autonomy and its Role in Robotic Language Acquisition

© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.The false attribution of autonomy and related concepts to artificial agents that lack the attributed levels of the respective characteristic is problematic in many ways. In this article we contrast this view with a positive viewpoint that emphasizes the potential role of such false attributions in the context of robotic language acquisition. By adding emotional displays and congruent body behaviors to a child-like humanoid robot’s behavioral repertoire we were able to bring naïve human tutors to engage in so called intent interpretations. In developmental psychology, intent interpretations can be hypothesized to play a central role in the acquisition of emotion, volition, and similar autonomy-related words. The aforementioned experiments originally targeted the acquisition of linguistic negation. However, participants produced other affect- and motivation-related words with high frequencies too and, as a consequence, these entered the robot’s active vocabulary. We will analyze participants’ non-negative emotional and volitional speech and contrast it with participants’ speech in a non-affective baseline scenario. Implications of these findings for robotic language acquisition in particular and artificial intelligence and robotics more generally will also be discussed.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Gender and emotion in tourism : do men and women tour leaders differ in their performance of emotional labour?

This study aims to explore the extent of gender differences among Chinese tour leaders’ roles and the relationship of such differences to emotional labour, perceived organisational support and perceived supervisor support. The findings revealed surface acting and deep acting to be the two major strategies of emotional labour. Gender difference is found in performing surface acting strategies. Further analysis of gender differences showed that women tour leaders perform better with more care from organisation and rewards. Men tour leaders perform better with more supervisors’ care, concern, recognition and appreciation; and job training and facilitation

Robot NAO used in therapy: Advanced design and evaluation

Treball de Final de Màster Universitari en Sistemes Intel·ligents. Codi: SIE043. Curs acadèmic 2013-2014Following with the previous work which we have done in the Final Research Project, we introduced a therapeutic application with social robotics to improve the positive mood in patients with fibromyalgia. Different works about therapeutic robotics, positive psychology, emotional intelligence, social learning and mood induction procedures (MIPs) are reviewed. Hardware and software requirements and system development are explained with detail. Conclusions about the clinical utility of these robots are disputed. Nowadays, experiments with real fibromyalgia patients are running, the methodology and procedures which take place in them are described in the future lines section of this work

The Effect of Conductor Head and Shoulder Movement and Preparatory Gesture Direction on Upper Body Movement of Individual Singers

This study examined participants" head and shoulder movements during 2 breath inhalation moments as they sang a familiar melody while viewing a videotaped conductor under 5 conductor preparatory gesture conditions. Results indicated apparent differences in participant head and shoulder movement with varied preparatory gestures. Specifically, participant head movement significantly increased with conductor upward head movement and participant shoulder movement significantly increased with conductor upward shoulder movement. Participant shoulder movement also increased during a downward moving gesture as compared to an upward moving gesture. In addition, less experienced participants appeared to move their heads less, but their shoulders more than experienced participants across all gesture conditions. Finally, participant head and shoulder measurements also differed between the initial breath and the internal breath taken in the melody. These results were discussed in terms of conductor gestural behaviors in choral rehearsals, limitations of the study, and suggestions for further research

Implementation of The Psychowriting Methods to Improve Linguistic Intelligence for Children in the Field of Writing Interest

Increasing children's intelligence requires strategies so that children have the habit of reading and writing things. One strategy that can be used is psychowriting. The purpose of this study was to increase the spirit of children with literacy to have enthusiasm for writing and interest in reading using the psychowriting method. This research is field research with a qualitative descriptive analysis approach. Data collection methods, using observation, interviews and documentation. The results of this study indicate that the implementation of psychowriting methods to improve linguistic intelligence for children is: a) preparation, b) memory strength test, c) presenting the closest and fastest idea, d) creating an atmosphere, e) implementing creative learning, and f) follow-up