How does an infant acquire the ability of joint attention?: A Constructive Approach

This study argues how a human infant acquires the ability of joint attention through interactions with its caregiver from the viewpoint of a constructive approach. This paper presents a constructive model by which a robot acquires a sensorimotor coordination for joint attention based on visual attention and learning with self-evaluation. Since visual attention does not always correspond to joint attention, the robot may have incorrect learning situations for joint attention as well as correct ones. However, the robot is expected to statistically lose the data of the incorrect ones as outliers through the learning, and consequently acquires the appropriate sensorimotor coordination for joint attention even if the environment is not controlled nor the caregiver provides any task evaluation. The experimental results suggest that the proposed model could explain the developmental mechanism of the infant’s joint attention because the learning process of the robot’s joint attention can be regarded as equivalent to the developmental process of the infant’s one

Developmental Robotics and its Role Towards Artificial General Intelligence

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Yet another gaze detector: An embodied calibration free system for the iCub robot

Schillingmann L, Nagai Y. Yet another gaze detector: An embodied calibration free system for the iCub robot. In: 2015 IEEE-RAS 15th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids). Seoul: IEEE; 2015

EmoSonics – Interactive Sound Interfaces for the Externalization of Emotions

Hermann T, Yang J, Nagai Y. EmoSonics – Interactive Sound Interfaces for the Externalization of Emotions. Presented at the Audio Mostly 2016, Norrköping, Sweden.This paper presents a novel approach for using sound to externalize emotional states so that they become an object for communication and reflection both for the users themselves and for interaction with other users such as peers, parents or therapists. We present an abstract, vocal, and physiology-based sound synthesis model whose sound space each covers various emotional associations. The key idea in our approach is to use an evolutionary optimization approach to enable users to find emotional prototypes which are then in turn fed into a kernel-regression-based mapping to allow users to navigate the sound space via a low-dimensional interface, which can be controlled in a playful way via tablet interactions. The method is intended to be used for supporting people with autism spectrum disorder

Cultural differences in speed adaptation in human-robot interaction tasks

AbstractIn social interactions, human movement is a rich source of information for all those who take part in the collaboration. In fact, a variety of intuitive messages are communicated through motion and continuously inform the partners about the future unfolding of the actions. A similar exchange of implicit information could support movement coordination in the context of Human-Robot Interaction. In this work, we investigate how implicit signaling in an interaction with a humanoid robot can lead to emergent coordination in the form of automatic speed adaptation. In particular, we assess whether different cultures – specifically Japanese and Italian – have a different impact on motor resonance and synchronization in HRI. Japanese people show a higher general acceptance toward robots when compared with Western cultures. Since acceptance, or better affiliation, is tightly connected to imitation and mimicry, we hypothesize a higher degree of speed imitation for Japanese participants when compared to Italians. In the experimental studies undertaken both in Japan and Italy, we observe that cultural differences do not impact on the natural predisposition of subjects to adapt to the robot

Acute effects of difference in glucose intake on arterial stiffness in healthy subjects

Background: Post-prandial hyperglycemia is associated with higher cardiovascular risk, which causes arterial stiffening and impaired function. Although post-prandial increases in blood glucose are proportional to the level of intake, the acute effects of different glucose intakes on arterial stiffness have not been fully characterized. The present study aimed to determine the acute effects of differences in glucose intake on arterial stiffness. Methods: Six healthy middle-aged and elderly individuals (mean age, 60.0 ± 12.1 years) were orally administered 15, 20, and 25 g of glucose on separate days in a randomized, controlled, cross-over fashion. Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity, heart-brachial pulse wave velocity, cardio-ankle vascular index, brachial and ankle blood pressure, heart rate, and blood glucose and serum insulin concentrations before and 30, 60, and 90 min after glucose ingestion were measured. Results: Compared to baseline, brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity was higher at 30, 60 and 90 min after ingestion of 25 g glucose, and higher at 90 min after ingestion of 20 g glucose, but at no time points after ingestion of 15 g. Cardio-ankle vascular index was higher at 60 min than at baseline after ingestion of 25 g glucose, but not after ingestion of 15 or 20 g. Conclusions: These results suggest that brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity and cardio-ankle vascular index is affected by the quantity of glucose ingested. Proposed presently is that glucose intake should be reduced at each meal to avoid increases in brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity and cardio-ankle vascular index during acute hyperglycemia

How do Infants Coordinate Head and Gaze?: Computational Analysis of Infant’s First Person View in Social Interactions

Schillingmann L, Burling JM, Yoshida H, Nagai Y. How do Infants Coordinate Head and Gaze?: Computational Analysis of Infant’s First Person View in Social Interactions. Presented at the Biennial Meeting of the SRCD, Philadelphia

A Perceptual Memory System for Affordance Learning in Humanoid Robots

Kammer M, Tscherepanow M, Schack T, Nagai Y. A Perceptual Memory System for Affordance Learning in Humanoid Robots. In: Honkela T, Duch W, Girolami M, Kaski S, eds. Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 6792. Berlin: Springer; 2011: 349-356.Memory constitutes an essential cognitive capability of humans and animals. It allows them to act in very complex, non-stationary environments. In this paper, we propose a perceptual memory system, which is intended to be applied on a humanoid robot learning affordances. According to the properties of biological memory systems, it has been designed in such a way as to enable life-long learning without catastrophic forgetting. Based on clustering sensory information, a symbolic representation is derived automatically. In contrast to alternative approaches, our memory system does not rely on pre-trained models and works completely unsupervised