Social robots, moral emotions

Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, Milan, Italy. May, 2009. ICEIS.[EN]The affective revolution in Psychology has prod uced enough knowledge to impl ement abilities of emotional recognition and expression in robots. However, the em otional prototypes are still very basic, almost caricaturized ones. If the goal is constructing robots that respond flexibly, in order to fulfill market demands from different countries while respec ting the moral values implicit in the social behavior of their inhabitants, then these robots will have to be pr ogrammed attending to detailed descriptions of the emotional experiences that are considered relevant in the interaction context in which the robot is going to be put to work (e.g., assisting people with cognitive or motor disabilities). The advantages of this approach are illustrated with an empirical study on contempt, the seventh basic emotion in Ekman’s theory, and one of the “rediscovered” moral emotions in Haidt’s New Synthesis. A phenomenol ogical analysis of the experience of contempt in 48 Spanish subjects shows the structure and some vari ations –prejudiced, self- serving, and altruistic– of this em otion. Quantitative information was later obtained with the help of blind coders. Some spontaneous facial expressions that sometimes accompany self-reports are also shown. Finally, some future directions in the Robotic s-Psychology intersection are presented (e.g., gender differences in social behavior)

Analysis of the empirical research on the feeling of presence

[EN]The feeling of presence consists of the feeling that another person or entity is detected near the extrapersonal space without any clear sensory evidence. Its symptoms include visual hallucinations and wrong coding of sensorial input. The phenomenon is sometimes present in pathologies such as sleep paralysis or neurodegenerative diseases, but it can also be found in healthy subjects. It has been associated with folk beliefs, but there is now enough evidence of its brain basis. A total of 72 studies from Web of Science and Scopus were analyzed considering 12 classificatory variables that were constructed bottom-up. Prevalence of neurodegenerative disease was higher for males, whereas sleep paralysis was prevalent for females. Twenty-one studies included participants with multiple pathologies. The episodes were generally associated to fear and anxiety. Some structural and functional alterations were found in neuroimaging case studies. Scale validation studies were scarce, usually showing scores with good psychometric properties. Diverse scales comprised different dimensions according to their objectives. Feeling of presence is a neuropsychological phenomenon, as failures in perception and self-concept are due to brain electric maladjustment. Evidence corroborates that mismatches are localized in cortical areas such as the temporal-parietal or insular cortex, as well as in subcortical areas, such as the hippocampus. The phenomenon main characteristics, associated factors, and measurement scales vary according to the studied pathological entity. Given that most scales have not been validated, a more empirical approach that takes into account the variety of associated pathologies is needed

What We Talk About When We Talk About Psychometrics?

[EN]Understanding the meaning of the term psychometrics can be approached from different perspectives, such as the consultation of dictionaries, the point of view of international experts, or the analysis of a linguistic corpus. For this study, an up-to-date Spanish corpus was used as the starting point. The sample consisted of 90 valid documents from which the first text was selected so that the frequencies of the themes came from independent texts. The method used was structured tabular thematic analysis (ST-TA). The results indicate that the most frequent meaning in Spanish is that related to the analysis of the quality of measurements, followed by that referring to evaluation, and finally that of a methodological approach in general. This is consistent with the dictionaries of authorities, but departs from the majority perspective of international experts, who consider that psychometrics does not necessarily have to be linked to psychology.[ES]El significado del término psicometría se puede abordar desde distintas perspectivas, tales como la consulta de diccionarios, el punto de vista de expertos internacionales o el análisis de un corpus lingüístico. Para este estudio, se ha partido de un corpus actualizado del español. La muestra fue de 90 documentos válidos de los que se seleccionó el primer texto de modo que las frecuencias de los temas procedieran de textos independientes. El método empleado fue el análisis temático tabular estructurado (AT-TE). Los resultados indican que la acepción más frecuente en español es la relativa al análisis de la calidad de las medidas, seguida de la que refiere a la evaluación y finalmente la de un enfoque metodológico en general, lo que es coherente con los diccionarios de autoridades, pero se aleja de la perspectiva mayoritaria de expertos internacionales, que consideran que la psicometría no tendría por qué vincularse a la psicología

Social robots, cross-cultural differences

Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, Angers, France, July 2013.[EN]The study of emotion abilities is of interest to Artificial Intelligence because identifying and responding approp riately to the affective states of humans is thought to make users more prone to interact with robots. However, cross - cultural differences in social communication are common. The CAD (Contempt, Anger, Disgust) hypothesis proposes that these three emotions are elicited by different violations of moral codes. Our exploratory study of texts from a corpus of Spanish contextualized words shows that both the emotion receiver and its perceived cause are different for these emotions: disgust takes as its object mos tly something concrete, anger is preferentially felt towards another person, and contempt towards an abstract object. In Spain, disgust was associated with prejudice, and anger with altruistic motives while contempt remained the most elusive of the triad. In Latin America, both disgust and contempt were associated with prejudice, while the altruistic function of anger failed to reach significance. Differences concerning the moral functions of anger and contempt corroborate that the cultural context in which emotions are expressed can change their moral meaning. The procedure is an ecologically valid one that can be of help for designing more realistic social robot

The massive stellar content in NGC604 and its evolutionary state

The ultraviolet resonance wind stellar lines, the nebular optical emission lines and the higher order terms of the Balmer series and HeI absorption lines detected in the spectra of NGC 604 are interpreted using evolutionary models optimized for young star forming regions. The evolutionary state and the massive stellar content of the region is derived in a self-consistent way. The three techniques applied suggest that the central ionizing cluster in NGC 604 is very young, 3 Myr old, and that the stars in the cluster were formed in an instantaneous burst following a Salpeter or flatter IMF, having stars more massive that 80 Msol. The stellar cluster is able to provide most of the ionizing photons needed to photoionize the whole nebula, and the wind power to form the central shell structure where the cluster core is located. The stellar cluster is affected by an extinction similar to the average extinction that affects the ionized gas. The estimated number of massive stars in the cluster is also in agreement with that derived from previous studies based on the detection of individual stars. The results that we present here support the use of these techniques for the interpretation of the integrated light of more distant star forming regionsComment: To be published in MNRAS. 17 pages and 17 figure

Potentiel des espaces publics ouverts pour les relations intergénérationnelles. Étude de cas dans la ville de Santa Cruz de Tenerife (îles Canaries, Espagne)

L’accelerat procés d’envelliment de les societats avançades ha suscitat la preocupació per fomentar la interacció de les persones grans amb les persones joves per tal d’aconseguir societats més cohesionades. Els espais públics oberts, com que són els llocs de trobada dels usuaris de diferents edats, esdevenen els escenaris idonis per assolir la intergeneracionalitat. Per fer-la possible és indispensable que s’hi desenvolupin activitats de trobada, bé siguin induïdes a partir de programes intergeneracionals o bé apareguin de manera espontània perquè el disseny de l’espai públic així ho estimuli. Mitjançant les metodologies quantitativa i qualitativa i amb l’objectiu de constatar les relacions intergeneracionals espontànies en els espais públics oberts i la potencialitat dels mateixos per al seu desenvolupament, s’analitza l’ús i l’apropiació de les persones joves i grans en dues places de Santa Cruz de Tenerife i els factors que poden contribuir que els espais públics resultin llocs per a la interrelació generacional.A common concern in ageing societies has been to promote interaction between old and young people as a measure to achieve social cohesion. Open public spaces work as places where different age groups coexist, thus they could serve as scenarios to achieve intergenerationality. To that end, it is necessary to enact an agenda for meeting activities, whether planned – through intergenerational programs – or spontaneous, but taking advantage of the design of public spaces. The aim of this work is to explore casual, unplanned intergenerational relationships in open public spaces, and the potential for developing them. Based on quantitative and qualitative methods, this paper analyzes young and old peoples’ appropriation of two squares in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, as well as the factors that guarantee intergenerational relationships in public spaces.El acelerado proceso de envejecimiento de las sociedades avanzadas ha suscitado la preocupación por fomentar la interacción de los mayores con los jóvenes para conseguir sociedades más cohesionadas. Los espacios públicos abiertos, al ser los lugares de concurrencia de usuarios de diferentes edades, son los escenarios idóneos para lograr la intergeneracionalidad. Para que esta sea posible es indispensable que se lleven a cabo actividades de encuentro, ya sean inducidas a partir de programas intergeneracionales o surjan de forma espontánea porque el diseño del espacio público lo estimula. Mediante las metodologías cuantitativa y cualitativa y con el objeto de constatar las relaciones intergeneracionales espontáneas en los espacios públicos abiertos y la potencialidad de los mismos para su desarrollo, se analiza el uso y la apropiación de jóvenes y mayores en dos plazas de Santa Cruz de Tenerife y los factores que pueden contribuir a que los espacios públicos resulten lugares para la interrelación generacional.Le processus accéléré de vieillissement des sociétés avancées suscite l’intérêt pour encourager l’interaction des personnes âgées avec les jeunes afin d’obtenir des sociétés plus cohésives. Les espaces publics ouverts, en tant que lieux de rencontre d’usagers d’âges différents, sont les lieux idéaux pour atteindre l’intergénération. Dans ce but, il est indispensable que soient menées des activités de rencontre, qu’elles soient induites par des programmes intergénérationnels ou qu’elles surgissent de manière spontanée, stimulées par la conception même de l’espace public. Au travers de méthodologies quantitative et qualitative, et dans le but de constater les relations intergénérationnelles spontanées dans les espaces publics et leur potentiel pour leur développement, l’usage et l’appropriation des jeunes et des personnes âgées dans deux places de Santa Cruz de Tenerife sont analysés, ainsi que les facteurs qui pourraient contribuer à ce que les espaces publics soient finalement des lieux pour l’interaction générationnelle

IMF shape constraints from stellar populations and dynamics from CALIFA

M. Lyubenova et. al.In this paper, we describe how we use stellar dynamics information to constrain the shape of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in a sample of 27 early-type galaxies from the CALIFA survey. We obtain dynamical and stellar mass-to-light ratios, ¿dyn and ¿*, over a homogenous aperture of 0.5 Re. We use the constraint ¿dyn¿¿* to test two IMF shapes within the framework of the extended MILES stellar population models. We rule out a single power-law IMF shape for 75 per cent of the galaxies in our sample. Conversely, we find that a double power-law IMF shape with a varying high-mass end slope is compatible (within 1¿) with 95 per cent of the galaxies. We also show that dynamical and stellar IMF mismatch factors give consistent results for the systematic variation of the IMF in these galaxies. © 2016, Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.This Paper is based on data obtained by the CALIFA survey, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science under grant ICTS-2009-10, and the CAHA. IMN and JFB acknowledge funding from grant AYA2013-48226-C3-1-P from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and, together with and GvdV, from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions via the ITN DAGAL (grant 289313). CJW acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. Support for LG is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009 awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS), and CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. RGD acknowledges support from AyA2014-57490-P. JMA acknowledges support from the ERC Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild).Peer Reviewe