Robot's Gendering Trouble: A Scoping Review of Gendering Humanoid Robots and its Effects on HRI

The discussion around the problematic practice of gendering humanoid robots has risen to the foreground in the last few years. To lay the basis for a thorough understanding of how robot's "gender" has been understood within the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) community - i.e., how it has been manipulated, in which contexts, and which effects it has yield on people's perceptions and interactions with robots - we performed a scoping review of the literature. We identified 553 papers relevant for our review retrieved from 5 different databases. The final sample of reviewed papers included 35 papers written between 2005 and 2021, which involved a total of 3902 participants. In this article, we thoroughly summarize these papers by reporting information about their objectives and assumptions on gender (i.e., definitions and reasons to manipulate gender), their manipulation of robot's "gender" (i.e., gender cues and manipulation checks), their experimental designs (e.g., demographics of participants, employed robots), and their results (i.e., main and interaction effects). The review reveals that robot's "gender" does not affect crucial constructs for the HRI, such as likability and acceptance, but rather bears its strongest effect on stereotyping. We leverage our different epistemological backgrounds in Social Robotics and Gender Studies to provide a comprehensive interdisciplinary perspective on the results of the review and suggest ways to move forward in the field of HRI.Comment: 29 pages, 1 figure, 3 long tables. The present paper has been submitted for publication to the International Journal of Social Robotics and is currently under revie

ENGAGE-DEM: a model of engagement of people with dementia

One of the most effective ways to improve quality of life in dementia is by exposing people to meaningful activities. The study of engagement is crucial to identify which activities are significant for persons with dementia and customize them. Previous work has mainly focused on developing assessment tools and the only available model of engagement for people with dementia focused on factors influencing engagement or influenced by engagement. This paper focuses on the internal functioning of engagement and presents the development and testing of a model specifying the components of engagement, their measures, and the relationships they entertain. We collected behavioral and physiological data while participants with dementia (N=14) were involved in six sessions of play, three of game-based cognitive stimulation and three of robot-based free play. We tested the concurrent validity of the measures employed to gauge engagement and ran factorial analysis and Structural Equation Modeling to determine whether the components of engagement and their relationships were those hypothesized. The model we constructed, which we call the ENGAGE-DEM, achieved excellent goodness of fit and can be considered a scaffold to the development of affective computing frameworks for measuring engagement online and offline, especially in HCI and HRI.Postprint (author's final draft

Giovani, nuovi media e socialità. Un approccio ecologico

Se si dà ad una ricerca sul rapporto tra i giovani, i nuovi media e la socialità un approccio metodologico di tipo ecologico, si può tenere conto dell’interazione tra vari ambienti comunicativi, o meglio del modo in cui le persone – nel nostro caso i giovani – gestiscono le loro attività comunicative e le loro relazioni in una pluralità interdipendente di contesti. Avendo impostato così la ricerca, le interviste in profondità mostrano una centralità dell’uso di Internet, significativamente combinata, tuttavia, con un sistema di ancoraggi cognitivi dislocati nell’ambiente familiare e in quello “locale”, molto importanti sul piano della mediazione simbolica. Appare alquanto variabile il rapporto tra relazioni online e relazioni offline: è questo uno degli aspetti su cui maggiormente si distinguono diversi gradi di autoconsapevolezza da parte degli intervistati, che peraltro si associa positivamente con i livelli di inclinazione alla multimedialità e di interesse verso l’informazione e verso lo spazio pubblico. Quest’ultimo aspetto risulta in generale influenzato dal carattere esplorativo dei percorsi identitari dei giovani. Vi sono molti casi di estraneità quasi totale; ma negli altri emerge coinvolgimento anche intenso, seppure molto raramente tradotto in adesione ideologico-partitica. Si evidenzia una forma non considerata in letteratura: l’impegno in discussioni pubbliche tra pari, specialmente sul tema dell’immigrazione, che si propone quindi come un nuovo cleavage delle culture politiche

Quantity of Movement as a Measure of Engagement for Dementia: The Influence of Motivational Disorders

Engagement in activities is crucial to improve quality of life in dementia. Yet, its measurement relies exclusively on behavior observation and the influence that behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) have on it is overlooked. This study investigated whether quantity of movement, gauged with a wrist-worn accelerometer, could be a sound measure of engagement and whether apathy and depression negatively affected engagement. Fourteen participants with dementia took part in 6 sessions of activities: 3 of cognitive games (eg, jigsaw puzzles) and 3 of robot play (Pleo). Results highlighted significant correlations between quantity of movement and observational scales of engagement and a strong negative influence of apathy and depression on engagement. Overall, these findings suggest that quantity of movement could be used as an ancillary measure of engagement and underline the need to profile people with dementia according to their concurrent BPSD to better understand their engagement in activities.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Clinical features and outcomes of elderly hospitalised patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure or both

Background and objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure (HF) mutually increase the risk of being present in the same patient, especially if older. Whether or not this coexistence may be associated with a worse prognosis is debated. Therefore, employing data derived from the REPOSI register, we evaluated the clinical features and outcomes in a population of elderly patients admitted to internal medicine wards and having COPD, HF or COPD + HF. Methods: We measured socio-demographic and anthropometric characteristics, severity and prevalence of comorbidities, clinical and laboratory features during hospitalization, mood disorders, functional independence, drug prescriptions and discharge destination. The primary study outcome was the risk of death. Results: We considered 2,343 elderly hospitalized patients (median age 81 years), of whom 1,154 (49%) had COPD, 813 (35%) HF, and 376 (16%) COPD + HF. Patients with COPD + HF had different characteristics than those with COPD or HF, such as a higher prevalence of previous hospitalizations, comorbidities (especially chronic kidney disease), higher respiratory rate at admission and number of prescribed drugs. Patients with COPD + HF (hazard ratio HR 1.74, 95% confidence intervals CI 1.16-2.61) and patients with dementia (HR 1.75, 95% CI 1.06-2.90) had a higher risk of death at one year. The Kaplan-Meier curves showed a higher mortality risk in the group of patients with COPD + HF for all causes (p = 0.010), respiratory causes (p = 0.006), cardiovascular causes (p = 0.046) and respiratory plus cardiovascular causes (p = 0.009). Conclusion: In this real-life cohort of hospitalized elderly patients, the coexistence of COPD and HF significantly worsened prognosis at one year. This finding may help to better define the care needs of this population

ENGAGE-DEM : a model of engagement of people with dementia

Dementia is a neurodegenerative disease that affects cognition, producing a reduction in thinking, problem-solving, and mnemonic abilities, functioning, preventing affected people to care for themselves and carry out activities of daily living (e.g., self-feeding, dress oneself), and psychosocial well-being, causing the appearance of disorders of thought content, mood, and behavior (e.g., depression, apathy, anxiety). The reduction of cognition, the disorientation in space and time, and the inability to complete basic tasks and function independently are the major causes of institutionalization in dementia. Care facilities are extremely efficient in meeting the physical and environmental needs of persons with dementia (e.g., food, self-care, drugs). However, they often fail in addressing mental and social needs. Several studies show that people with dementia living in institutionalized contexts spend most of their time inactive and isolated. Just as many studies demonstrate that engagement in playful activities is crucial to ensure quality of life and psychosocial well-being in dementia. On the one hand, the centrality of the medical aspects of dementia is due to the legacy of the biomedical approach to care. On the other hand, it is caused by the objective difficulty of understanding the needs of somebody who struggles to communicate. As a matter of fact, we are in great need of models enabling us to make meaning of how people with dementia express their psychological states. According to the literature, engagement is the psychological state of proactive involvement with an object (e.g., a game, an interactive system) or an agent (e.g., a person, a social robot) that has a positive affective nuance. In healthy adults, engagement can be measured on three different levels, according to three distinct response systems: experiential/subjective (i.e., self-reports), behavioral/expressive (i.e. overt behavior), and peripheral-physiological (i.e., human bodily reactions). In adults with dementia, the experiential/subjective level is rarely accessible due to cognitive impairment, the behavioral/expressive level might be blunted by motivational disorders like apathy and depression, and the peripheralphysiological level might p rovide insightful r esults, but is often overlooked. As the three response systems are not always equally accessible, it becomes crucial to combine them to achieve the most exhaustive possible measurement of engagement in people with dementia. The objective of this dissertation is twofold. First, it aims at exploring new techniques to assess engagement in dementia with the help of unobtrusive physiological sensors and systematic behavior observation. Second, it focuses on the development of a model of engagement of people with dementia that could formalize the relationships among these assessment techniques and outline their relative meaning in the economy of the overall engagement state. In order to pursue these two goals, the doctoral research was organized in three studies. First, we carried out an extensive ethnographic study to understand people with dementia in their context of living and get acquainted with the activities proposed by nursing homes. Second, we conducted an exploratory study to investigate the reactivity of people with dementia to an experimental setting and deploy a sensible research protocol for data collection. Third, we performed an experimental study and collected a database of multimodal data (e.g., video recordings, electrodermal activity signals, accelerometer signals) while people with dementia were involved in two types of activities: a game-based cognitive stimulation (i.e., jigsaw puzzles, shape puzzles, and a match with dominoes) and a robot-based free play (with the dinosaur robot Pleo). As a first result, we came up with three techniques to measure different aspects of engagement in people with dementia: electrodermal activity (EDA), the Ethographic and Laban-Inspired Coding System of Engagement (ELICSE), and quantity of movement. EDA – which is the variation in the skin conductance derived from the activation of the sympathetic nervous system – accounts for the arousal of the person with dementia during the activity. The ELICSE – which is a coding system of engagement based on nonverbal behavior – permits the measurement of different body configurations that account for different levels of engagement. Quantity of movement – which is the amount of movement on the non-dominant wrist gauged with a triaxial accelerometer – captures the proactive engagement of the person with dementia during the activity (i.e., holding and manipulating objects, reaching out others).Según la literatura, la involucración o el compromiso es el estado psicológico de la participación proactiva con un objeto (por ejemplo, un juego, un libro) o un agente (por ejemplo, una persona, un robot social) que tiene un matiz afectivo positivo. En adultos sanos, el compromiso puede medirse en tres niveles: experiencial / subjetivo (es decir, mediante autoinformes), conductual / expresivo (es decir, por el análisis del comportamiento manifiesto) y periférico-fisiológico (es decir, a través de las medidas de reacciones corporales humanas). En adultos con demencia, el nivel experiencial / subjetivo rara vez es accesible debido a un deterioro cognitivo, el nivel conductual / expresivo puede verse afectado por trastornos motivacionales como la apatía y la depresión, y el nivel fisiológico periférico puede proporcionar resultados interesantes, pero a menudo no se contempla. Dado que los tres sistemas de respuesta no son siempre accesibles, resulta crucial combinarlos para lograr la medición más exhaustiva posible del compromiso en personas con demencia. El objetivo de esta disertación es doble. Primero, su objetivo es explorar nuevas técnicas para evaluar la participación en actividades en personas con demencia con sensores fisiológicos discretos y la observación sistemática de su comportamiento. En segundo lugar, se centra en el desarrollo de un modelo de compromiso de las personas con demencia que podría formalizar las relaciones entre los componentes del compromiso y sus medidas. Como primer resultado, desarrollamos tres técnicas para medir diferentes aspectos del compromiso en personas con demencia: actividad electrodérmica (EDA), el Sistema de Compromiso de Codificación Etográfico e Inspirado en Laban (ELICSE) y la cantidad de movimiento. La EDA, la variación en la conductividad de la piel derivada de la activación del sistema nervioso simpático, explica la excitación de la persona con demencia durante la actividad. El ELICSE, un sistema de codificación de compromiso basado en el comportamiento no verbal, permite la medición de diferentes configuraciones corporales que responden a diferentes niveles de compromiso. La cantidad de movimiento en la muñeca no dominante medida con un acelerómetro triaxial, captura el compromiso proactivo de la persona con demencia durante la actividad (por ejemplo, sujetar y manipular objetos). Como segundo resultado, construimos un modelo de compromiso, el ENGAGE-DEM, que especifica los componentes del compromiso, cómo se miden a través de las técnicas de medición implementadas y qué relaciones mantienen. El ENGAGE-DEM es el resultado de un proceso de prueba y refinamiento progresivo de un modelo de compromiso extraído de la literatura. Este proceso llevó a refutar la definición ampliamente aceptada de compromiso como un compuesto de afecto positivo y compromiso proactivo y a la promoción de una definición de compromiso más coherente con los datos. Según ENGAGE-DEM, el compromiso es el grado de participación proactiva de la persona con demencia en una actividad que puede tomar diferentes tonos hedónicos y lograr diferentes niveles de movilización de energía. El ENGAGE-DEM podría contribuir en varios dominios de conocimiento. Podría ser útil en el campo de la investigación en enfermería, ya que podría promover una mejor comprensión de la persona con demencia y permitir una elección más informada de actividades significativas. También podría ser una ayuda para los diseñadores que buscan crear tecnologías atractivas y divertidas para las personas con demencia. Por último, se podría usar para permitir que los robots socialmente interactivos y las tecnologías interactivas detecten el estado de compromiso de la persona con demencia en el mismo momento que se produce la actividad y reaccionar en consecuencia

Exploring the Potential of Light-Enhanced HRI to Promote Social Interactions in People with Dementia

Research has shown that a pet robot could constitute a leverage point to open a communication channel in a triadic relation between a person with dementia and others. Additionally, tangible light projections have been shown to capture the attention of people with dementia and contribute to social interaction. Following these findings, we designed a prototype of a light-enhanced Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) for people with dementia using the robot Pleo and tested its potential to foster social interaction with 19 experts in the field of dementia and care technology in a within-subjects online study. Experts were shown a video of the prototype, as well as two videos of comparable activities with only the light or only the robot. Results showed no significant differences in the activities’ potential to stimulate social interaction and enjoyment, while they disclosed that the light-enhanced HRI could be more difficult to understand at a cognitive level. While experts considered the robot-only activity as more suited for individual interactions, they perceived the light-enhanced HRI as more suited for small sized groups. This latter result seems to suggest that adding a tangible light to an HRI for people with dementia could convert it from an individual to a group activity

Understanding engagement in dementia through behavior. The ethographic and Laban-inspired coding system of engagement (ELICSE) and the Evidence-based Model of Engagement-related Behavior (EMODEB)

Engagement in activities is of crucial importance for people with dementia. State of the art assessment techniques rely exclusively on behavior observation to measure engagement in dementia. These techniques are either too general to grasp how engagement is naturally expressed through behavior or too complex to be traced back to an overall engagement state. We carried out a longitudinal study to develop a coding system of engagement-related behavior that could tackle these issues and to create an evidence-based model of engagement to make meaning of such a coding system. Fourteen elderlies with mild to moderate dementia took part in the study. They were involved in two activities: a game-based cognitive stimulation and a robot-based free play. The coding system was developed with a mixed approach: ethographic and Laban-inspired. First, we developed two ethograms to describe the behavior of participants in the two activities in detail. Then, we used Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) to identify a common structure to the behaviors in the two ethograms and unify them in a unique coding system. The inter-rater reliability (IRR) of the coding system proved to be excellent for cognitive games (kappa = 0.78) and very good for robot play (kappa = 0.74). From the scoring of the videos, we developed an evidence-based model of engagement. This was based on the most frequent patterns of body part organization (i.e., the way body parts are connected in movement) observed during activities. Each pattern was given a meaning in terms of engagement by making reference to the literature. The model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). It achieved an excellent goodness of fit and all the hypothesized relations between variables were significant. We called the coding system that we developed the Ethographic and Laban-Inspired Coding System of Engagement (ELICSE) and the model the Evidence-based Model of Engagement-related Behavior (EMODEB). To the best of our knowledge, the ELICSE and the EMODEB constitute the first formalization of engagement-related behavior for dementia that describes how behavior unfolds over time and what it means in terms of engagement

The Effects of Robot’s Facial Expressions on Children’s First Impressions of Trustworthiness

Facial expressions of emotions influence the perception of robots in first encounters. People can judge trustworthiness, likability, and aggressiveness in a few milliseconds by simply observing other individuals' faces. While first impressions have been extensively studied in adult-robot interaction, they have been addressed in child-robot interaction only rarely. This knowledge is crucial, as the first impression children build of robots might influence their willingness to interact with them over extended periods of time, for example in applications where robots play the role of companions or tutors. The present study focuses on investigating the effects of facial expressions of emotions on children's perceptions of trust towards robots during first encounters. We constructed a set of facial expressions of happiness and anger varying in terms of intensity. We implemented these facial expressions onto a Furhat robot that was either male-like or female-like. 129 children were exposed to the robot's expressions for a few seconds. We asked them to evaluate the robot in terms of trustworthiness, likability, and competence and investigated how emotion type, emotion intensity, and gender-likeness affected the perception of the robot. Results showed that a few seconds are enough for children to make a trait inference based on the robot's emotion. We observed that emotion type, emotion intensity, and gender-likeness did not directly affect trust, but the perception of likability and competence of the robot served as facilitator to judge trustworthiness

The Effects of Motivational Strategies and Goal Attainment on Children’s Trust in a Virtual Social Robot : A Pilot Study

Understanding the way different robot’s strategies affect children’s perceptions of social robots is crucial for a trustworthy child-robot relationship. This paper presents a preliminary study on whether motivational strategies based on Regulatory Focus Theory and goal attainment affect children’s perception of a virtual social robot when solving a task. The ongoing pandemic (COVID-19) is altering the way we perform research. Hence, we designed a fully autonomous game with a virtual social robot. In an online user study, 25 children (8 to 17 years old) played a regulatory focus goal-oriented game with a virtual child-like version of the Furhat robot. We evaluated children’s perceptions of the robot’s social trust, competency trust, and likability. Also, we assessed the children’s affective state (valence and arousal) before and after playing the game. Our preliminary results show that in the prevention condition, fulfilling the goal elicited less happiness in children. Surprisingly, we observed a trend increase in the social and competency trust elicited by the virtual robot when children were prevented from fulfilling the goal of the task. We discuss the results and the effects of online setups on conducting user studies with children