WHEN DO WE COOPERATE WITH ROBOTS?

Robotic usage is entering the world into many diverse ways, from advanced surgical areas to assistive technologies for disabled persons. Robots are increasingly designed and developed to assist humans with everyday tasks. However, they are still perceived as tools to be manipulated and controlled by humans, rather than complete and autonomous helpers. One of the main reasons can be addressed to the development of their capabilities to appear credible and trustworthy. This dissertation explores the challenge of interactions with social robots, investigating which specific situations and environments lead to an increase in trust and cooperation between humans and robots. After discussing the multifaceted concept of anthropomorphism and its key role on cooperation through literature, three open issues are faced: the lack of a clear definition of anthropomorphic contribution to robots acceptance, the lack of defined anthropomorphic boundaries that should not be crossed to maintain a satisfying interaction in HRI and the absence of a real cooperative interaction with a robotic peer. In Chapter 2, the first issue is addressed, demonstrating that robots credibility can be affected by experience and anthropomorphic stereotype activation. Chapter 3, 4, 5 and 6 are focussed in resolving the remaining two issues in parallel. By using the Economic Investment Game in four different studies, the emergence of human cooperative attitudes towards robots is demonstrated. Finally, the limits of anthropomorphism are investigated through comparisons of social human-like behaviours with machine-like static nature. Results show that the type of payoff can selectively affect trust and cooperation in HRI: in case of low payoff participants’ increase their tendency to look for the robots anthropomorphic cues, while a condition of high payoff is more suitable for machine-like agents.THRIVE, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Award No. FA9550-15-1-002

From artifact to icon: an analysis of the Venus figurines in archaeological literature and contemporary culture

This thesis examines the body of material known as the Venus figurines, which date from the European Upper Palaeolithic period. The argument proceeds in two stages: the first examines this material through a detailed textual analysis of the archaeological literature that has discussed these figurines since their initial discovery at the end of the 19th century to the present day; the second investigates the utilisation of particular Venus figurines in the contemporary medium of the World Wide Web. The textual analysis identifies and discusses a number of factors relevant to the presentation and fundamental construction of the Venus figurines as an archaeological category. These include examination of the use of terminology to label and define the figurines as a class of material(Chapter 2); assessment of information presented in the literature pertaining to contextual and chronological factors (Chapter 3); evaluation of the evidence provided for both the homogeneity and diversity apparent within this category (Chapter 4); Chapter 5 isolates and discusses a number of methods implicit in the production of the literature by which aspects of both individual figurines and the wider class are prioritised to create and consolidate a particular impression of the archaeological material; Chapter 6 presents three detailed Case Studies of these processes as they are in practice applied to the Venus figurines. In Chapter 7 the specific use of these figurines in one medium of contemporary culture, the World Wide Web, is examined. Within this medium, the figurines are removed from their original archaeological context and contemporary meanings are attributed to them. This popular usage is then compared and contrasted with archaeological practice. My analysis demonstrates that parallels between the two approaches can be drawn, and identifies the role of the Venus figurines as a "commodity" within both archaeology and contemporary culture

Plot 99 : towards a feminine semiotic : spiritual and sexual emergence(y) in women's puppetry and visual performance

Includes bibliographical references.This thesis explores how a multidisciplinary Feminine Semiotics may find expression through the cross-disciplinary medium of puppetry and visual performance. It investigates puppetry's relevance to the developing academic field of Practice as Research in performance. It considers the theoretical and creative applications of this multidisciplinary art form in the innovative Feminine Semiotics of emergence(y) in the production Plot 99

WHEN A CHILD MEETS A ROBOT: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS THAT MAKE INTERACTION POSSIBLE

La presente tesi di dottorato, dal titolo When a child meets a robot: the psychological factors that make interaction possible, vuole introdurre ed esplorare un campo abbastanza nuovo della ricerca psicologica che si occupa specificatamente dell’interazione bambino-robot, presentando le molteplici sfaccettature che la caratterizzano e i principali costrutti psicologici come la Teoria della Mente (ToM), la fiducia, la relazione di attaccamento, non tralasciando, inoltre, la valenza del design dei robot utilizzati nelle ricerche che hanno reso possibile questa tesi. I lavori di ricerca, qui presentati, vanno ad esplorare i costrutti sopra citati, indagandoli in profondità e con curiosità scientifica. Nel dettaglio, sono presentate le seguenti ricerche: 1) Shall I trust you? From Child-Robot Interaction To Trusting Relationship, 2) Can a robot lie? The role of false belief and intentionality understanding in children aged 5 and 6 years, 3) A robot is not worth another: exploring Children’s Mental State Attribution to Different Humanoid Robots, 4) Coding with me: exploring the effect of coding intervention on preschoolers’cognitive skills. Infine, nell’ultimo capitolo, relativo alle conclusioni, viene sviluppata una riflessione teorica riguardante il ruolo rilevante assunto dallo sviluppo cognitivo dei bambini nei processi interazionali con gli agenti robotici.This PhD thesis, title When a child meets a robot: the psychological factors that make interaction possible, wants to introduce and explore a fairly new field of psychological research that specifically deals with the child-robot interaction, presenting the many facets that characterize it and the main psychological constructs such as the Theory of Mind (ToM), trust, attachment relationship, without neglecting, moreover, the value of the design of the robots used in the studies that have made this thesis possible. The research works, presented here, exploring the constructs mentioned above, investigating them in depth and with scientific curiosity. In detail, the following studies are presented: 1) Shall I trust you? From Child-Robot Interaction To Trusting Relationship, 2) Can a robot lie? The role of false belief and intentionality understanding in children aged 5 and 6 years, 3) A robot is not worth another: exploring Children’s Mental State Attribution to Different Humanoid Robots, 4) Coding with me: exploring the effect of a coding intervention on preschoolers’cognitive skills. Finally, in the last chapter, concerning the conclusions, a theoretical reflection is developed regarding the relevant role assumed by children's cognitive development in interactional processes with robotic agents

Shall I trust you? From child-robot interaction to trusting relationships

Studying trust in the context of human-robot interaction is of great importance given the increasing relevance and presence of robotic agents in various social settings, from educational to clinical. In the present study, we investigated the acquisition, loss and restoration of trust when preschool and school-age children played with either a human or a humanoid robot in-vivo. The relationship between trust and the representation of the quality of attachment relationships, Theory of Mind, and executive function skills was also investigated. Additionally, to outline children\u2019s beliefs about the mental competencies of the robot, we further evaluated the attribution of mental states to the interactive agent. In general, no substantial differences were found in children\u2019s trust in the play-partner as a function of agency (human or robot). Nevertheless, 3-years-olds showed a trend toward trusting the human more than the robot, as opposed to 7-years-olds, who displayed the reverse pattern. These findings align with results showing that, for children aged 3 and 7 years, the cognitive ability to switch was significantly associated with trust restoration in the human and the robot, respectively. Additionally, supporting previous findings, a dichotomy was found between attribution of mental states to the human and robot and children\u2019s behavior: while attributing significantly lower mental states to the robot than the human, in the trusting game children behaved similarly when they related to the human and the robot. Altogether, the results of this study highlight that comparable psychological mechanisms are at play when children are to establish a novel trustful relationship with a human and robot partner. Furthermore, the findings shed light on the interplay \u2013 during development \u2013 between children\u2019s quality of attachment relationships and the development of a Theory of Mind, which act differently on trust dynamics as a function of the children\u2019s age as well as the interactive partner\u2019s nature (human vs. robot)