Musical Robots For Children With ASD Using A Client-Server Architecture

Presented at the 22nd International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD-2016)People with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are known to have difficulty recognizing and expressing emotions, which affects their social integration. Leveraging the recent advances in interactive robot and music therapy approaches, and integrating both, we have designed musical robots that can facilitate social and emotional interactions of children with ASD. Robots communicate with children with ASD while detecting their emotional states and physical activities and then, make real-time sonification based on the interaction data. Given that we envision the use of multiple robots with children, we have adopted a client-server architecture. Each robot and sensing device plays a role as a terminal, while the sonification server processes all the data and generates harmonized sonification. After describing our goals for the use of sonification, we detail the system architecture and on-going research scenarios. We believe that the present paper offers a new perspective on the sonification application for assistive technologies

The Effects of Robot Voices and Appearances on Users\u27 Emotion Recognition and Subjective Perception

As the influence of social robots in people\u27s daily lives grows, research on understanding people\u27s perception of robots including sociability, trust, acceptance, and preference becomes more pervasive. Research has considered visual, vocal, or tactile cues to express robots\u27 emotions, whereas little research has provided a holistic view in examining the interactions among different factors influencing emotion perception. We investigated multiple facets of user perception on robots during a conversational task by varying the robots\u27 voice types, appearances, and emotions. In our experiment, 20 participants interacted with two robots having four different voice types. While participants were reading fairy tales to the robot, the robot gave vocal feedback with seven emotions and the participants evaluated the robot\u27s profiles through post surveys. The results indicate that (1) the accuracy of emotion perception differed depending on presented emotions, (2) a regular human voice showed higher user preferences and naturalness, (3) but a characterized voice was more appropriate for expressing emotions with significantly higher accuracy in emotion perception, and (4) participants showed significantly higher emotion recognition accuracy with the animal robot than the humanoid robot. A follow-up study (N=10) with voice-only conditions confirmed that the importance of embodiment. The results from this study could provide the guidelines needed to design social robots that consider emotional aspects in conversations between robots and users

Clinical audit of core podiatry treatment in the NHS

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Core podiatry involves treatment of the nails, corns and callus and also giving footwear and foot health advice. Though it is an integral part of current podiatric practice little evidence is available to support its efficacy in terms of research and audit data. This information is important in order to support the current NHS commissioning process where services are expected to provide data on standards including outcomes. This study aimed to increase the evidence base for this area of practice by conducting a multi-centre audit in 8 NHS podiatry departments over a 1-year period.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The outcome measure used in this audit was the Podiatry Health Questionnaire which is a self completed short measure of foot health including a pain visual analogue scale and a section for the podiatrist to rate an individual's foot health based on their podiatric problems. The patient questionnaire was completed by individuals prior to receiving podiatry care and then 2 weeks after treatment to assess the effect of core podiatry in terms of pain and foot health.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>1047 patients completed both questionnaires, with an age range from 26–95 years and a mean age of 72.9 years. The podiatrists clinical rating at baseline showed 75% of patients had either slight or moderate podiatric problems. The differences in questionnaire and visual analogue scores before and after treatment were determined according to three categories – <it>better, same, worse </it>and 75% of patients' scores either remained the same or improved after core podiatry treatment. A student t-test showed a statistical significant difference in pre and post treatment scores where P < 0.001, though the confidence interval indicated that the improvement was relatively small.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Core podiatry has been shown to sustain or improve foot health and pain in 75% of the patients taking part in the audit. Simple outcome measures including pain scales should be used routinely in podiatric practice to assess the affect of different aspects of treatments and improve the evidence base for podiatry.</p

Multisensory Cue Congruency In The Lane Change Test

Drivers interact with a number of systems while driving. Taking advantage of multiple modalities can reduce the cognitive effort of information processing and facilitate multitasking. The present study aims to investigate how and when auditory cues improve driver responses to a visual target. We manipulated three dimensions (spatial, semantic, and temporal) of verbal and nonverbal cues to interact with visual spatial instructions. Multimodal displays were compared with unimodal (visual-only) displays to see whether they would facilitate or degrade a vehicle control task. Twenty-six drivers participated in the Auditory-Spatial Stroop experiment using a lane change test (LCT). The preceding auditory cues improved response time over the visual-only condition. When dimensions conflicted, spatial (location) congruency had a stronger impact than semantic (meaning) congruency. The effects on accuracy was minimal, but there was a trend of speed-accuracy trade-offs. Results are discussed along with theoretical issues and future works

Musical Robot Dance Freeze for Children

Using robots in therapy for children on the autism spectrum is a promising avenue for child-robot interaction, and one that has garnered significant interest from the research community. After preliminary interviews with stakeholders and evaluating music selections, twelve neurotypical children and three children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) participated in an experiment where they played the dance freeze game with a Nao robot and a researcher to four songs. There were mixed results for neurotypical children, but the trend was toward greater engagement with the researcher. Results for two of the children with ASD showed greater attention and engagement while dancing with the robot, but one child was more engaged with the researcher. There was little difference in game performance between partners or songs for either group, however, upbeat music did encourage greater movement than calm music. Using a robot in a musical game for children with ASD appears to maintain the advantages of using robots found in previous works, while adding the new dimension of music to influence the interaction

TOWARD A LONGITUDINAL PROGRAM OF IN SITU SOCIAL ROBOTICS RESEARCH AND INFORMAL STEAM EDUCATION

Human-robot interaction (HRI) and its sub-fields of child-robot interaction (CRI) and social robotics are crucial to the development of robots that operate well in human oriented social spaces. In a series of studies, we developed a flexible program of research that would support a broad range of social robotics investigations while delivering science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) education content. In Study 1, we conducted acceptance research with college students utilizing 5 robots of humanoid, animalian, fantastical, and mechanistic forms to ascertain if robot appearance influenced people’s preference for and interaction with robots. Results suggest that participants prefer robots that resemble animals or humans. The study was repeated in Study 2 while only providing images of the robots and largely corroborated the initial findings. Study 3 was conducted investigating emotional voice acceptance and recognition with social robots. College students read fairy tales to robots that provided emotional comments on the stories to be evaluated. Emotion recognition accuracy and user acceptance were measured with nuanced results. With elementary students, we conducted a long-term study, Study 4, in an after-school program utilizing many of the same robots. In hour long weekly sessions over 9 weeks, small groups of 5 to 7 year old children played with the robots, constructed robot models, and produced two theater performances featuring themselves and robots. Interview results showed that the children also preferred humanoid and animalian robots. In a subsequent 8 week study, Study 5, we worked with approximately 25 children grades K-5 in the same after-school program. Using the familiar “Beauty and the Beast” fairytale, acting, dancing, music, and drawing were explored with robots and coupled with relevant STEM concepts. Each theme was given a dedicated two-week module. The modular design coupled with a well-known story enabled children who could come to only a few sessions to participate actively. The children were enthusiastic and engaged with the program. Research interviews once again confirmed preference for humanoid and animalian robot forms. The progression of laboratory and in situ experiments presented allowed us to efficiently conduct social robotics research with multiple robots and create a longitudinal informal education program that both delivered STEAM educational content and provided a flexible platform for social robotics research in an everyday setting

Virtual reality museum of consumer technologies

Given the rapid pace of technical development in the past several decades, many people have fond memories of using devices that are no longer common. We built a prototype of a virtual museum of consumer technologies to explore this with the intention of prompting memories of using past tech in the visitors. The prototype was created using the Janus VR browser and evaluated on a 2D display by 7 young adult users. It successfully prompted memories in all of the evaluators and all users rated the pleasure of touring the museum neutral or better. Future work involves making a more comprehensive museum and exploring better ways to utilize virtual reality for more engaging experiences

Child-Robot Interaction in a Musical Dance Game: An Exploratory Comparison Study between Typically Developing Children and Children with Autism

Using robots in therapy for children on the autism spectrum is a promising avenue for child-robot interaction, and one that has garnered significant interest from the research community. After preliminary interviews with stakeholders and evaluating music selections, twelve typically developing (TD) children and three children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) participated in an experiment where they played the dance freeze game to four songs in partnership with either a NAO robot or a human partner. Overall, there were significant differences between TD children and children with ASD (e.g., mimicry, dance quality, & game play). There were mixed results for TD children, but they tended to show greater engagement with the researcher. However, objective results for children with ASD showed greater attention and engagement while dancing with the robot. There was little difference in game performance between partners or songs for either group. However, upbeat music did encourage greater movement than calm music. Using a robot in a musical dance game for children with ASD appears to show the advantages and potential just as in previous research efforts. Implications and future research are discussed with the results

Robot theater with children for STEAM education

To promote STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) education, we conducted a long-term study in an elementary school as part of an after-school program. We worked with small groups of 5 to 7 year old children in hour long weekly sessions for nine weeks. We introduced the children to a variety of robots spanning a wide range of form factors and technical sophistication. Over the course of our study, the children played with the robots, constructed robot models with clay, and wrote and acted in a theater production with robots. We believe that this technique of using robots as actors in children’s theater productions has significant potential for educating children in a number of fields under the STEAM paradigm

The influence of robot design on acceptance of social robots

Abstract: Human-robot interaction (HRI) is a rapidly growing area of research and the important factors of the relationship between robots and the people who use them are still being determined. In the present research, we tried to ascertain if robot appearance influenced people\u27s preference for, interest in, and communication with particular robots. To this aim, 18 college students were asked to interact with 5 different robots, answer an investigator-designed questionnaire, and complete an adapted PHIT-40 scale for each robot. Results suggest that regardless of the actual interaction with robots, participants seem to prefer robots that resemble animals or humans over those that are intended to represent an imaginary creature or do not resemble a creature at all. Results are discussed based on social-robot application and design features