Why Robots Should Be Social: Enhancing Machine Learning through Social Human-Robot Interaction.

Social learning is a powerful method for cultural propagation of knowledge and skills relying on a complex interplay of learning strategies, social ecology and the human propensity for both learning and tutoring. Social learning has the potential to be an equally potent learning strategy for artificial systems and robots in specific. However, given the complexity and unstructured nature of social learning, implementing social machine learning proves to be a challenging problem. We study one particular aspect of social machine learning: that of offering social cues during the learning interaction. Specifically, we study whether people are sensitive to social cues offered by a learning robot, in a similar way to children's social bids for tutoring. We use a child-like social robot and a task in which the robot has to learn the meaning of words. For this a simple turn-based interaction is used, based on language games. Two conditions are tested: one in which the robot uses social means to invite a human teacher to provide information based on what the robot requires to fill gaps in its knowledge (i.e. expression of a learning preference); the other in which the robot does not provide social cues to communicate a learning preference. We observe that conveying a learning preference through the use of social cues results in better and faster learning by the robot. People also seem to form a "mental model" of the robot, tailoring the tutoring to the robot's performance as opposed to using simply random teaching. In addition, the social learning shows a clear gender effect with female participants being responsive to the robot's bids, while male teachers appear to be less receptive. This work shows how additional social cues in social machine learning can result in people offering better quality learning input to artificial systems, resulting in improved learning performance

Dynamic Models of Language Evolution: The Linguistic Perspective

Language is probably the key defining characteristic of humanity, an immensely powerful tool which provides its users with an infinitely expressive means of representing their complex thoughts and reflections, and of successfully communicating them to others. It is the foundation on which human societies have been built and the means through which humanity’s unparalleled intellectual and technological achievements have been realized. Although we have a natural intuitive understanding of what a language is, the specification of a particular language is nevertheless remarkably difficult, if not impossible, to pin down precisely. All languages contain many separate yet integral systems which work interdependently to allow the expression of our thoughts and the interpretation of others’ expressions: each has, for instance, a set of basic meaningless sounds (e.g. [e], [l], [s]) which can be combined to make different meaningful words and parts of words (e.g. else, less, sell, -less ); these meaningful units can be combined to make complex words (e.g. spinelessness, selling ), and the words themselves can then be combined in very many complex ways into phrases, clauses and an infinite number of meaningful sentences; finally each of these sentences can be interpreted in dramatically different ways, depending on the contexts in which it is uttered and on who is doing the interpretation. Languages can be analysed at any of these different levels, which make up many of the sub-fields of linguistics, and the primary job of linguistic theorists is to try to explain the rules which best explain these complex combinations

Beneficial gamma-knife radiosurgery in a patient with Nelson's syndrome.

Department of Endocrinology, University Hospital Maastricht, The Netherlands. [email protected] A 50-year-old female patient with Cushing's disease had undergone transsphenoidal removal of the pituitary adenoma and conventional radiotherapy in 1988. Since no remission was achieved, she underwent bilateral adrenalectomy in May 1989. During out-patient follow-up, she developed signs and symptoms due to invasive Adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH)-producing macroadenoma (Nelson's syndrome) in 1994. ACTH levels at that time were 3400 ng/l. Near-total surgical resection of a 2.0 x 2.5 pituitary tumour which slightly extended laterally into the cavernous sinus was achieved by subfrontal approach in June 1994. However, she rapidly developed a recurrence of her complaints, with a visual field defect inferior-nasal of the left eye, and a second operation was carried out in November 1994. Culture of the tumour's cells revealed significant inhibition of ACTH production by bromocriptine. Adjuvant treatment with this drug therefore was started in November 1994. Because of the rapid recurrence it was decided to treat her with gamma-knife radiosurgery. The dose that was given in January 1995 was 12 Gy to the border and 40 Gy into the centre of the tumour. During a follow-up of more than 2 years, no recurrence, but even a minor reduction of tumour mass was observed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Plasma ACTH levels decreased gradually to levels between 200 and 400 ng/l, and ophthalmologic complaints disappeared. It is concluded that gamma-knife radiosurgery may be a good alternative for patients with Nelson's syndrome who have rapidly recurring disease