Understanding the impact of apathy in people with dementia on formal carers within residential settings

Abstract available at each chapter

Authenticity and co-design: On responsibly creating relational robots for children

Meet Tega. Blue, fluffy, and AI-enabled, Tega is a relational robot: a robot designed to form relationships with humans. Created to aid in early childhood education, Tega talks with children, plays educational games with them, solves puzzles, and helps in creative activities like making up stories and drawing. Children are drawn to Tega, describing him as a friend, and attributing thoughts and feelings to him ("he's kind," "if you just left him here and nobody came to play with him, he might be sad"). Scholars and members of the public alike have raised the alarm about relational robots, worrying that the relationships that people, and especially children, form with such robots are objectionably inauthentic. We, members of an interdisciplinary team that developed and studies Tega, make this inauthenticity worry precise and offer practical recommendations for addressing it. We distinguish two kinds of (in)authenticity -- inauthenticity as unreality, and inauthenticity as deception -- arguing that neither is just what others have thought it is. With our distinction in hand, we argue that the authenticity concern can be met only through co-design methods -- methods that give stakeholders of all kinds (e.g. parents, educators, and children themselves) a genuine say in how relational robots are built

Conversations on Empathy

In the aftermath of a global pandemic, amidst new and ongoing wars, genocide, inequality, and staggering ecological collapse, some in the public and political arena have argued that we are in desperate need of greater empathy — be this with our neighbours, refugees, war victims, the vulnerable or disappearing animal and plant species. This interdisciplinary volume asks the crucial questions: How does a better understanding of empathy contribute, if at all, to our understanding of others? How is it implicated in the ways we perceive, understand and constitute others as subjects? Conversations on Empathy examines how empathy might be enacted and experienced either as a way to highlight forms of otherness or, instead, to overcome what might otherwise appear to be irreducible differences. It explores the ways in which empathy enables us to understand, imagine and create sameness and otherness in our everyday intersubjective encounters focusing on a varied range of "radical others" – others who are perceived as being dramatically different from oneself. With a focus on the importance of empathy to understand difference, the book contends that the role of empathy is critical, now more than ever, for thinking about local and global challenges of interconnectedness, care and justice

Conversations on Empathy

In the aftermath of a global pandemic, amidst new and ongoing wars, genocide, inequality, and staggering ecological collapse, some in the public and political arena have argued that we are in desperate need of greater empathy — be this with our neighbours, refugees, war victims, the vulnerable or disappearing animal and plant species. This interdisciplinary volume asks the crucial questions: How does a better understanding of empathy contribute, if at all, to our understanding of others? How is it implicated in the ways we perceive, understand and constitute others as subjects? Conversations on Empathy examines how empathy might be enacted and experienced either as a way to highlight forms of otherness or, instead, to overcome what might otherwise appear to be irreducible differences. It explores the ways in which empathy enables us to understand, imagine and create sameness and otherness in our everyday intersubjective encounters focusing on a varied range of "radical others" – others who are perceived as being dramatically different from oneself. With a focus on the importance of empathy to understand difference, the book contends that the role of empathy is critical, now more than ever, for thinking about local and global challenges of interconnectedness, care and justice

Developing a Semi-autonomous Robot to Engage Children with Special Needs and Their Peers in Robot-Assisted Play

Despite the wide variety of robots used in human-robot interaction (HRI) scenarios, the potential of robots as connectors whilst acting as play mediators has not been fully explored. Robots present an opportunity to redefine traditional game scenarios by being physical embodiments of agents/game elements. Robot assisted play has been used to reduce the barriers that children with physical special needs experience. However, many projects focus on child-robot interaction rather than child-child interaction. In an attempt to address this gap, a semi-autonomous mobile robot, MyJay, was created. This thesis discusses the successful development of MyJay and its potential contribution in future HRI studies. MyJay is an open-source robot that plays a basketball-like game. It features light and color for communicative feedback, omni-directional mobility, robust mechanisms, adjustable levels of autonomy for dynamic interaction, and a child-friendly aesthetically-pleasing outer shell. The design process included target users such as children with special needs and therapists in order to create a robot that ensures repeated use, engagement, and long-term interaction. A hybrid approach was taken to involve stakeholders, combining user-centered design and co-design, exemplifying that children can be included in the creation process even when it is not possible to hold in-person co-design sessions due to COVID-19. Aside from the care taken to meet user requirements, the robot was designed with researchers in mind, featuring extensible software and ROS compatibility. The frame is constructed from aluminum to ensure rigidity, and most functional parts related to gameplay are 3D printed to allow for quick swapping, should a need to change game mechanics arise. The modularity in software and in mechanical aspects should increase the potential of MyJay as a valuable research tool for future HRI studies. Finally, a novel framework to simulate teleoperation difficulties for individuals with upper-limb mobility challenges is proposed, along with a dynamic assistance algorithm to aid in the teleoperation process

Using Dogs in a Home-Based Intervention with Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Humans and dogs have lived among each other in mutually beneficial relationships for thousands of years. In recent years, this human-animal bond has emerged as a catalyst for animal-assisted activities and therapies that may benefit those with disabilities, including children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). ASD are characterized by qualitative impairments in social interaction and communication and restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. The nonverbal and nonjudgmental nature of dogs may be non-threatening and easier for children with ASD to decode, which may decrease anxiety and facilitate social bonding. Further, with their roles as social lubricants/transitional objects and natural foci of interest, dogs may facilitate social interaction between children with ASD and other people. Using a single case, multiple baseline design across participants, this study investigated whether multiple semi-structured interactions with dogs would increase social and communicative behaviors and decrease restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior in children. Although only two had statistically significant results, all three participants showed responses to intervention in the hypothesized directions. This study supports the position that children with ASD may benefit from participating in animal-assisted activities with dogs

Playful E-textile Sonic Interaction for Socially Engaged and Open-Ended Play Between Autistic Children

Research on the potential benefits of technology for autistic children is an emergent field in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), especially within the Child-Computer Interaction Community. This thesis contributes a design approach grounded in theories of play, cognitive development, and autism to expand the discourse on methodological guidelines for performing empirical studies with non-verbal autistic children and to extend the design space to cater to the socio-emotional and sensory needs of this population. The thesis reveals how sonic e-textile Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) can be used effectively to mediate children’s social participation in playful activities. This is demonstrated through developing three explorative field-studies conducted at a specialist school based in North-East London where two sonic e-textile playful TUIs, namely Mazi and Olly, have been created and tested with three groups of autistic children aged between 5-10. The three studies ran over the period of three years and were designed to investigate the potentials of TUIs as shareable toys during leisure and recreational activities to a) support social and playful interactions among peers and b) provide opportunities for self-regulation. The key contributions of this thesis are the designs of two tangible user interfaces, which offer a set of design approaches to guide researchers through creating shareable and playful tangibles for non-verbal autistic children; a framework for analysis and a thorough evaluation process that other researchers could use to assess the efficacy of playful TUI designs for nonverbal autistic children; and an in-depth discussion about the research process, which offers a new perspective about holistic designs and evaluation of technologies that aim to scaffold play in groups non-verbal autistic children

XR, music and neurodiversity: design and application of new mixed reality technologies that facilitate musical intervention for children with autism spectrum conditions

This thesis, accompanied by the practice outputs,investigates sensory integration, social interaction and creativity through a newly developed VR-musical interface designed exclusively for children with a high-functioning autism spectrum condition (ASC).The results aim to contribute to the limited expanse of literature and research surrounding Virtual Reality (VR) musical interventions and Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) designed to support individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions. The author has developed bespoke hardware, software and a new methodology to conduct field investigations. These outputs include a Virtual Immersive Musical Reality Intervention (ViMRI) protocol, a Supplemental Personalised, immersive Musical Experience(SPiME) programme, the Assisted Real-time Three-dimensional Immersive Musical Intervention System’ (ARTIMIS) and a bespoke (and fully configurable) ‘Creative immersive interactive Musical Software’ application (CiiMS). The outputs are each implemented within a series of institutional investigations of 18 autistic child participants. Four groups are evaluated using newly developed virtual assessment and scoring mechanisms devised exclusively from long-established rating scales. Key quantitative indicators from the datasets demonstrate consistent findings and significant improvements for individual preferences (likes), fear reduction efficacy, and social interaction. Six individual case studies present positive qualitative results demonstrating improved decision-making and sensorimotor processing. The preliminary research trials further indicate that using this virtual-reality music technology system and newly developed protocols produces notable improvements for participants with an ASC. More significantly, there is evidence that the supplemental technology facilitates a reduction in psychological anxiety and improvements in dexterity. The virtual music composition and improvisation system presented here require further extensive testing in different spheres for proof of concept