Emotional design and human-robot interaction

Recent years have shown an increase in the importance of emotions applied to the Design field - Emotional Design. In this sense, the emotional design aims to elicit (e.g., pleasure) or prevent (e.g., displeasure) determined emotions, during human product interaction. That is, the emotional design regulates the emotional interaction between the individual and the product (e.g., robot). Robot design has been a growing area whereby robots are interacting directly with humans in which emotions are essential in the interaction. Therefore, this paper aims, through a non-systematic literature review, to explore the application of emotional design, particularly on Human-Robot Interaction. Robot design features (e.g., appearance, expressing emotions and spatial distance) that affect emotional design are introduced. The chapter ends with a discussion and a conclusion.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Expressing emotions with the social robot Probo

Probo is a huggable animal-like robot, designed to act as a social interface. It will be used as a platform to study human robot interaction (HRI) while employing human-like social cues and communication modalities. The robot has a fully actuated head, with 20 degrees of freedom, capable of showing facial expressions and making eye-contact. The basic facial expressions are represented as a vector in the 2-dimensional emotion space based on Russel's circomplex model of affect (Posner et al. in Dev. Psychopathol. 17(03): 715-734, 2005). The recognition of the underlying emotions based on the robot's facial expressions were tested in different user studies and compared with similar robotic projects. This paper describes the concepts of the robot Probo and the ability to express emotional states

Robots that care

Many countries face pressure on their health care systems. To alleviate this pressure, 'self care' and 'self monitoring' are often stimulated with the use of new assistive technologies. Social robotics is a research area where robotic technology is optimized for various social functions. One of these functions is self care assistance. To foster progress in this area of 'social robotics for self care', coordinated efforts between research institutes, companies and end users are needed. This workshop focuses on bringing these stakeholders together and creating a shared research agenda

KASPAR - a minimally expressive humanoid robot for human-robot interaction research

Original article can be found at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t778164488~db=all Copyright Taylor and Francis / InformaThis paper provides a comprehensive introduction to the design of the minimally expressive robot KASPAR, which is particularly suitable for human-robot interaction studies. A low-cost design with off-the-shelf components has been used in a novel design inspired from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint, including comics design and Japanese Noh theatre. The design rationale of the robot and its technical features are described in detail. Three research studies will be presented that have been using KASPAR extensively. Firstly, we present its application in robot-assisted play and therapy for children with autism. Secondly, we illustrate its use in human-robot interaction studies investigating the role of interaction kinesics and gestures. Lastly, we describe a study in the field of developmental robotics into computational architectures based on interaction histories for robot ontogeny. The three areas differ in the way as to how the robot is being operated and its role in social interaction scenarios. Each will be introduced briefly and examples of the results will be presented. Reflections on the specific design features of KASPAR that were important in these studies and lessons learnt from these studies concerning the design of humanoid robots for social interaction will also be discussed. An assessment of the robot in terms of utility of the design for human-robot interaction experiments concludes the paper.Peer reviewe

Optimization of a robotics gaze control system

Producción CientíficaGaze control is an important issue in the interaction between a robot and humans. In particular, the decision of who to pay attention to in a multi-party conversation is a way of improving a robot’s naturalness in human-robot interaction. A system based on a competitive neural network can decide who to look at with a smooth transition in the focus of attention when significant changes in stimuli are produced. One important aspect in this process is the configuration of the different parameters of such a neural network. The weights of the different stimuli have to be computed in order to achieve behavior similar to humans. This article explains how these weights can be obtained by solving an optimization problem. The experiments carried out and some results are also presented

Neuromuscular-blocking agents for tracheal intubation in pediatric patients (0-12 years): A systematic review and meta-analysis

Item does not contain fulltextBACKGROUND: The benefit of using neuromuscular-blocking agents to facilitate tracheal intubation in pediatric patients remains unclear due to variations in design, treatments, and results among trials. By combining the available evidence, we aimed to establish whether scientific findings are consistent and can be generalized across various populations, settings, and treatments. METHODS: A systematic search for randomized controlled trials, related to the use of neuromuscular-blocking agents for tracheal intubation in American Society of Anesthesiologists class I-II participants (0-12 years), was performed. We considered all randomized controlled trials that studied whether intubation conditions and hemodynamics obtained by using neuromuscular-blocking agents were equivalent to those that were achieved without neuromuscular-blocking agents. We combined the outcomes in Review Manager 5.3 (RevMan, The Cochrane Collaboration) by pairwise random-effects meta-analysis using a risk ratio (RR) for intubation conditions and mean difference for hemodynamic values (mean [95% Confidence Intervals]). Heterogeneity among trials was explored using sensitivity analyses. RESULTS: We identified 22 eligible randomized controlled trials with 1651 participants. Overall, the use of a neuromuscular-blocking agent was associated with a clinically important increase in the likelihood of both excellent (RR = 1.41 [1.19-1.68], I(2)  = 76%) and acceptable (RR = 1.13 [1.07-1.19], I(2)  = 68%) intubating conditions. There is strong evidence that both unacceptable intubation conditions (RR = 0.35 [0.22-0.46], I(2)  = 23%) and failed first intubation attempts (RR = 0.25 [0.14-0.42], I(2)  = 0%) were less likely to occur when a neuromuscular-blocking agent was used compared with when it was not. Higher systolic or mean arterial pressures (mean difference = 13.3 [9.1-17.5] mm Hg, I(2)  = 69%) and heart rates (mean difference = 15.9 [11.0-20.8] beats/min, I(2)  = 75%) as well as a lower incidence of arrhythmias were observed when tracheal intubation was facilitated by neuromuscular-blocking agents. CONCLUSION: The use of a neuromuscular-blocking agent during light-to-moderate depth of anesthesia can improve the quality as well as the success rate of tracheal intubation and is associated with better hemodynamic stability during induction of anesthesia

Robot-Mediated Interviews - How Effective Is a Humanoid Robot as a Tool for Interviewing Young Children?

Copyright: 2013 Wood et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedRobots have been used in a variety of education, therapy or entertainment contexts. This paper introduces the novel application of using humanoid robots for robot-mediated interviews. An experimental study examines how children's responses towards the humanoid robot KASPAR in an interview context differ in comparison to their interaction with a human in a similar setting. Twenty-one children aged between 7 and 9 took part in this study. Each child participated in two interviews, one with an adult and one with a humanoid robot. Measures include the behavioural coding of the children's behaviour during the interviews and questionnaire data. The questions in these interviews focused on a special event that had recently taken place in the school. The results reveal that the children interacted with KASPAR very similar to how they interacted with a human interviewer. The quantitative behaviour analysis reveal that the most notable difference between the interviews with KASPAR and the human were the duration of the interviews, the eye gaze directed towards the different interviewers, and the response time of the interviewers. These results are discussed in light of future work towards developing KASPAR as an 'interviewer' for young children in application areas where a robot may have advantages over a human interviewer, e.g. in police, social services, or healthcare applications. © 2013 Wood et al.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio