Advances in Human-Robot Handshaking

The use of social, anthropomorphic robots to support humans in various industries has been on the rise. During Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), physically interactive non-verbal behaviour is key for more natural interactions. Handshaking is one such natural interaction used commonly in many social contexts. It is one of the first non-verbal interactions which takes place and should, therefore, be part of the repertoire of a social robot. In this paper, we explore the existing state of Human-Robot Handshaking and discuss possible ways forward for such physically interactive behaviours.Comment: Accepted at The 12th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR 2020) 12 Pages, 1 Figur

An ecological method for the sampling of nonverbal signalling behaviours of young children with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD)

- Background: Profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) are a complex range of disabilities that affect the general health and wellbeing of the individual and their capacity to interact and learn. - Method: We developed a new methodology to capture the nonsymbolic signalling behaviours of children with PMLD within the context of a face-to-face interaction with a caregiver to provide analysis at a micro-level of descriptive detail incorporating the use of the ELAN digital video software. - Conclusion: The signalling behaviours of participants in a natural, everyday interaction can be better understood with the use of this innovation in methodology, which is predicated on the ecology of communication. Recognition of the developmental ability of the participants is an integral factor within that ecology. The method presented establishes an advanced account of the modalities through which a child affected by PMLD is able to communicate

Body synchrony in triadic interaction

© 2020 The Authors. Humans subtly synchronize body movement during face-to-face conversation. In this context, bodily synchrony has been linked to affiliation and social bonding, task success and comprehension, and potential conflict. Almost all studies of conversational synchrony involve dyads, and relatively less is known about the structure of synchrony in groups larger than two. We conducted an optic flow analysis of body movement in triads engaged in face-to-face conversation, and explored a common measure of synchrony: time-aligned bodily covariation. We correlated this measure of synchrony with a diverse set of covariates related to the outcome of interactions. Triads showed higher maximum cross-correlation relative to a surrogate baseline, and ‘meta-synchrony’, in that composite dyads in a triad tended to show correlated structure. A windowed analysis also revealed that synchrony varies widely across an interaction. As in prior studies, average synchrony was low but statistically reliable in just a few minutes of interaction. In an exploratory analysis, we investigated the potential function of body synchrony by predicting it from various covariates, such as linguistic style matching, liking, laughter and cooperative play in a behavioural economic game. Exploratory results do not reveal a clear function for synchrony, though colaughter within triads was associated with greater body synchrony, and is consistent with an earlier analysis showing a positive connection between colaughter and cooperation. We end by discussing the importance of expanding and codifying analyses of synchrony and assessing its function.Support for original data collection and analysis provided by an International Society for Human Ethology grant to M.M.G., and a UCLA Faculty Research grant to J.H.M