Towards Empathetic Social Robots: Investigating the Interplay between Facial Expressions and Brain Activity

The pursuit of creating empathetic social robots that can understand and respond to human emotions is a critical challenge in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Social robots, designed to interact with humans in various settings, from healthcare to customer service, require a sophisticated understanding of human emotional states to resonate and effectively assist truly. Our research contributes to this ambitious goal by exploring the relationship between natural facial expressions and brain activity in these human-robot interactions, as captured by electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. This paper presents our initial steps towards this attempt. We want to find which areas in the participant user’s brain are most activated and how these activations correlate with facial expressions. Understanding these correlations is essential for developing social robots that recognize and empathize with various human emotions. Our approach combines neuroscience and computer science, offering a novel perspective in the quest to enhance the emotional intelligence of social robots. We share some preliminary results on a new multimodal dataset that we are developing, providing valuable insights into the potential of our work to improve the personalization and emotional depth of social robot interactions

04/18/1997 - Collective Soul To Perform At EIU.pdf

International audience► We present a spectroscopic method to discriminate biotic from abiotic carbonates. ► Infrared spectral modifications induced by thermal processing are investigated. ► We analyse carbonate samples with no evidences of biomineralization. ► Our method is a powerful tool for the search of life on Mars

Leaves and fruits preparations of Pistacia lentiscus L.: A review on the ethnopharmacological uses and implications in inflammation and infection

There is an increasing interest in revisiting plants for drug discovery, proving scientifically their role as remedies. The aim of this review was to give an overview of the ethnopharmacological uses of Pistacia lentiscus L. (PlL) leaves and fruits, expanding the search for the scientific discovery of their chemistry, anti-inflammatory, antioxidative and antimicrobial activities. PlL is a wild-growing shrub rich in terpenoids and polyphenols, the oil and extracts of which have been widely used against inflammation and infections, and as wound healing agents. The more recurrent components in PlL essential oil (EO) are represented by α-pinene, terpinene, caryophyllene, limonene and myrcene, with high variability in concentration depending on the Mediterranean country. The anti-inflammatory activity of the oil mainly occurs due to the inhibition of pro-inflammatory cytokines and the arachidonic acid cascade. Interestingly, the capacity against COX-2 and LOX indicates PlL EO as a dual inhibitory compound. The high content of polyphenols enriching the extracts provide explanations for the known biological properties of the plant. The protective effect against reactive oxygen species is of wide interest. In particular, their anthocyanins content greatly clarifies their antioxidative capacity. Further, the antimicrobial activity of PlL oil and extracts includes the inhibition of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, periodontal bacteria and Candida spp. In conclusion, the relevant scientific properties indicate PlL as a nutraceutical and also as a therapeutic agent against a wide range of diseases based on inflammation and infections

Application of Raman Spectroscopy in Comparison Between Cryptic Microbialites of Recent Marine Caves and Triassic Patch Reefs

Accepted for publication in PALAIOS as of 16 Aug 2019.University of Calabria grant MIUR (ex 60% 2017)

Comparing angular and curved shapes in terms of implicit associations and approach/avoidance responses.

Most people prefer smoothly curved shapes over more angular shapes. We investigated the origin of this effect using abstract shapes and implicit measures of semantic association and preference. In Experiment 1 we used a multidimensional Implicit Association Test (IAT) to verify the strength of the association of curved and angular polygons with danger (safe vs. danger words), valence (positive vs. negative words) and gender (female vs. male names). Results showed that curved polygons were associated with safe and positive concepts and with female names, whereas angular polygons were associated with danger and negative concepts and with male names. Experiment 2 used a different implicit measure, which avoided any need to categorise the stimuli. Using a revised version of the Stimulus Response Compatibility (SRC) task we tested with a stick figure (i.e., the manikin) approach and avoidance reactions to curved and angular polygons. We found that RTs for approaching vs. avoiding angular polygons did not differ, even in the condition where the angles were more pronounced. By contrast participants were faster and more accurate when moving the manikin towards curved shapes. Experiment 2 suggests that preference for curvature cannot derive entirely from an association of angles with threat. We conclude that smoothly curved contours make these abstract shapes more pleasant. Further studies are needed to clarify the nature of such a preference

Visitor’s approaches, personality traits and psycho-physiological well-being in different art style museums

The aim of this contribution is to address a line of research, conducted in the last ten years, on visitor’s approaches to different art styles museums (ancient vs. modern), and the educational aspects regarding the young adult’s museum visits experience

Automatic affective evaluation of pictures and words

Il presente lavoro si occupa di elaborazione automatica di immagini e parole con contenuto affettivo (positivo e negativo) utilizzando, nel primo esperimento il paradigma Stroop, mentre nel secondo il paradigma del priming. I risultati mostrano che i tempi di risposta sono più veloci quando si verifica una congruenza tra stimolo e contenuto affettivo (positivo/positivo o negativo/negativo) piuttosto che quando la relazione è di incongruenza(positivo/negativo).The present work deals with the automatic processing of pictures and words associated with a particular type of affective meaning. In Experiment 1, pictures were associated with the words according to an affective quality of the objects represented. Participants had to perform an affective categorization task (positive/negative) of thirty pairs of stimuli composed of pictures and words linked in three different associations: congruent, incongruent and neutral, using the picture/word variant of the Stroop paradigm. Results show evidence of automatic affective processing: latency times were influenced by incongruent distractors, and pictures were faster than words. In Experiment 2 we wanted to see if automatic evaluation would occur even without an explicit evaluative goal. Ten pictures presented as a prime were associated to three words: the name of the picture, an affective meaning of the picture, and a neutral word. Participants had to respond to a lexical decision task. Results show that latency times of names were faster than those of emotions and neutral words; moreover, positive emotions were processed faster than negative emotions and neutral words. In both experiments there is clear evidence of an asymmetry concerning the valence of the stimuli with positive stimuli being processed faster than negative ones