{"title":"Verbal explanations by collaborating robot teams","authors":"Avinash Kumar Singh, Neha Baranwal, Kai-Florian Richter, T. Hellström, Suna Bensch","doi":"10.1515/pjbr-2021-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2021-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article, we present work on collaborating robot teams that use verbal explanations of their actions and intentions in order to be more understandable to the human. For this, we introduce a mechanism that determines what information the robots should verbalize in accordance with Grice’s maxim of quantity, i.e., convey as much information as is required and no more or less. Our setup is a robot team collaborating to achieve a common goal while explaining in natural language what they are currently doing and what they intend to do. The proposed approach is implemented on three Pepper robots moving objects on a table. It is evaluated by human subjects answering a range of questions about the robots’ explanations, which are generated using either our proposed approach or two further approaches implemented for evaluation purposes. Overall, we find that our proposed approach leads to the most understanding of what the robots are doing. In addition, we further propose a method for incorporating policies driving the distribution of tasks among the robots, which may further support understandability.","PeriodicalId":90037,"journal":{"name":"Paladyn : journal of behavioral robotics","volume":"19 1","pages":"47 - 57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73709451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How context and design shape human-robot trust and attributions","authors":"Hannah Biermann, P. Brauner, M. Ziefle","doi":"10.1515/pjbr-2021-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2021-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In increasingly digitized working and living environments, human-robot collaboration is growing fast with human trust toward robotic collaboration as a key factor for the innovative teamwork to succeed. This article explores the impact of design factors of the robotic interface (anthropomorphic vs functional) and usage context (production vs care) on human–robot trust and attributions. The results of a scenario-based survey with N = 228 N=228 participants showed a higher willingness to collaborate with production robots compared to care. Context and design influenced the trust attributed to the robots: robots with a technical appearance in production were trusted more than anthropomorphic robots or robots in the care context. The evaluation of attributions by means of a semantic differential showed that differences in robot design were less pronounced for the production context in comparison to the care context. In the latter, anthropomorphic robots were associated with positive attributes. The results contribute to a better understanding of the complex nature of trust in automation and can be used to identify and shape use case-specific risk perceptions as well as perceived opportunities to interacting with collaborative robots. Findings of this study are pertinent to research (e.g., experts in human–robot interaction) and industry, with special regard given to the technical development and design.","PeriodicalId":90037,"journal":{"name":"Paladyn : journal of behavioral robotics","volume":"43 1","pages":"74 - 86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81010946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
G. Lakatos, L. Wood, D. Syrdal, B. Robins, A. Zaraki, K. Dautenhahn
{"title":"Robot-mediated intervention can assist children with autism to develop visual perspective taking skills","authors":"G. Lakatos, L. Wood, D. Syrdal, B. Robins, A. Zaraki, K. Dautenhahn","doi":"10.1515/pjbr-2021-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2021-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this work, we tested a recently developed novel methodology to assist children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) improve their Visual Perspective Taking (VPT) and Theory of Mind (ToM) skills using the humanoid robot Kaspar. VPT is the ability to see the world from another person’s perspective, drawing upon both social and spatial information. Children with ASD often find it difficult to understand that others might have perspectives, viewpoints and beliefs that are different from their own, which is a fundamental aspect of both VPT and ToM. The games we designed were implemented as the first attempt to study if these skills can be improved in children with ASD through interacting with a humanoid robot in a series of trials. The games involved a number of different actions with the common goal of helping the children to see the world from the robot’s perspective. Children with ASD were recruited to the study according to specific inclusion criteria that were determined in a previous pilot study. In order to measure the potential impact of the games on the children, three pre- and post-tests (Smarties, Sally–Anne and Charlie tests) were conducted with the children. Our findings suggest that children with ASD can indeed benefit from this approach of robot-assisted therapy.","PeriodicalId":90037,"journal":{"name":"Paladyn : journal of behavioral robotics","volume":"30 1 1","pages":"87 - 101"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78177872","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"User-centred design of humanoid robots’ communication","authors":"Sofia Thunberg, T. Ziemke","doi":"10.1515/pjbr-2021-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2021-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Interaction between humans and robots will benefit if people have at least a rough mental model of what a robot knows about the world and what it plans to do. But how do we design human-robot interactions to facilitate this? Previous research has shown that one can change people’s mental models of robots by manipulating the robots’ physical appearance. However, this has mostly not been done in a user-centred way, i.e. without a focus on what users need and want. Starting from theories of how humans form and adapt mental models of others, we investigated how the participatory design method, PICTIVE, can be used to generate design ideas about how a humanoid robot could communicate. Five participants went through three phases based on eight scenarios from the state-of-the-art tasks in the RoboCup@Home social robotics competition. The results indicate that participatory design can be a suitable method to generate design concepts for robots’ communication in human-robot interaction.","PeriodicalId":90037,"journal":{"name":"Paladyn : journal of behavioral robotics","volume":"6 1","pages":"58 - 73"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86526343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understandable and trustworthy explainable robots: A sensemaking perspective","authors":"Guglielmo Papagni, S. Koeszegi","doi":"10.1515/pjbr-2021-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2021-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article discusses the fundamental requirements for making explainable robots trustworthy and comprehensible for non-expert users. To this extent, we identify three main issues to solve: the approximate nature of explanations, their dependence on the interaction context and the intrinsic limitations of human understanding. The article proposes an organic solution for the design of explainable robots rooted in a sensemaking perspective. The establishment of contextual interaction boundaries, combined with the adoption of plausibility as the main criterion for the evaluation of explanations and of interactive and multi-modal explanations, forms the core of this proposal.","PeriodicalId":90037,"journal":{"name":"Paladyn : journal of behavioral robotics","volume":"58 1","pages":"13 - 30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83113279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Love dolls and sex robots in unproven and unexplored fields of application","authors":"Oliver Bendel","doi":"10.1515/pjbr-2021-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2021-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Love dolls, the successors of blow-up dolls, are widespread. They can be ordered online or bought in sex shops and can be found in brothels and households. Sex robots are also on the rise. Research, however, has been slow to address this topic thoroughly. Often, it does not differentiate between users and areas of application, remaining vague, especially in the humanities and social sciences. The present contribution deals with the idea and history of love dolls and sex robots. Against this background, it identifies areas of application that have not been investigated or have hardly been investigated at all. These include prisons, the military, monasteries and seminaries, science, art and design as well as the gamer scene. There is, at least, some relevant research about the application of these artefacts in nursing and retirement homes and as such, these will be given priority. The use of love dolls and sex robots in all these fields is outlined, special features are discussed and initial ethical, legal and pragmatic considerations are made. It becomes clear that artificial love servants can create added value, but that their use must be carefully considered and prepared. In some cases, their use may even be counterproductive.","PeriodicalId":90037,"journal":{"name":"Paladyn : journal of behavioral robotics","volume":"385 1","pages":"1 - 12"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76447225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
W. Louie, Jessica Korneder, Ibrahim Abbas, Cristyn Pawluk
{"title":"A study on an applied behavior analysis-based robot-mediated listening comprehension intervention for ASD","authors":"W. Louie, Jessica Korneder, Ibrahim Abbas, Cristyn Pawluk","doi":"10.1515/pjbr-2021-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2021-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong developmental condition that affects an individual’s ability to communicate and relate to others. Despite such challenges, early intervention during childhood development has shown to have positive long-term benefits for individuals with ASD. Namely, early childhood development of communicative speech skills has shown to improve future literacy and academic achievement. However, the delivery of such interventions is often time-consuming. Socially assistive robots (SARs) are a potential strategic technology that could help support intervention delivery for children with ASD and increase the number of individuals that healthcare professionals can positively affect. For SARs to be effectively integrated in real-world treatment for individuals with ASD, they should follow current evidence-based practices used by therapists such as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). In this work, we present a study that investigates the efficacy of applying well-known ABA techniques to a robot-mediated listening comprehension intervention delivered to children with ASD at a university-based ABA clinic. The interventions were delivered in place of human therapists to teach study participants a new skill as a part of their overall treatment plan. All the children participating in the intervention improved in the skill being taught by the robot and enjoyed interacting with the robot, as evident by high occurrences of positive affect as well as engagement during the sessions. One of the three participants has also reached mastery of the skill via the robot-mediated interventions.","PeriodicalId":90037,"journal":{"name":"Paladyn : journal of behavioral robotics","volume":"119 1","pages":"31 - 46"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89041107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Guy Laban, Jeana George, V. Morrison, Emily S. Cross
{"title":"Tell me more! Assessing interactions with social robots from speech","authors":"Guy Laban, Jeana George, V. Morrison, Emily S. Cross","doi":"10.31234/osf.io/jkht2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jkht2","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract As social robots are increasingly introduced into health interventions, one potential area where they might prove valuable is in supporting people’s psychological health through conversation. Given the importance of self-disclosure for psychological health, this study assessed the viability of using social robots for eliciting rich disclosures that identify needs and emotional states in human interaction partners. Three within-subject experiments were conducted with participants interacting with another person, a humanoid social robot, and a disembodied conversational agent (voice assistant). We performed a number of objective evaluations of disclosures to these three agents via speech content and voice analyses and also probed participants’ subjective evaluations of their disclosures to three agents. Our findings suggest that participants overall disclose more to humans than artificial agents, that agents’ embodiment influences disclosure quantity and quality, and that people are generally aware of differences in their personal disclosures to three agents studied here. Together, the findings set the stage for further investigation into the psychological underpinnings of self-disclosures to artificial agents and their potential role in eliciting disclosures as part of mental and physical health interventions.","PeriodicalId":90037,"journal":{"name":"Paladyn : journal of behavioral robotics","volume":"46 1","pages":"136 - 159"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78815753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The morality of abusing a robot","authors":"C. Bartneck, M. Keijsers","doi":"10.1515/pjbr-2020-0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2020-0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract It is not uncommon for humans to exhibit abusive behaviour towards robots. This study compares how abusive behaviour towards a human is perceived differently in comparison with identical behaviour towards a robot. We showed participants 16 video clips of unparalleled quality that depicted different levels of violence and abuse. For each video, we asked participants to rate the moral acceptability of the action, the violence depicted, the intention to harm, and how abusive the action was. The results indicate no significant difference in the perceived morality of the actions shown in the videos across the two victim agents. When the agents started to fight back, their reactive aggressive behaviour was rated differently. Humans fighting back were seen as less immoral compared with robots fighting back. A mediation analysis showed that this was predominately due to participants perceiving the robot’s response as more abusive than the human’s response.","PeriodicalId":90037,"journal":{"name":"Paladyn : journal of behavioral robotics","volume":"54 1","pages":"271 - 283"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86394656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A narrative approach to human-robot interaction prototyping for companion robots","authors":"K. Koay, D. Syrdal, K. Dautenhahn, M. Walters","doi":"10.1515/pjbr-2020-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2020-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper presents a proof of concept prototype study for domestic home robot companions, using a narrative-based methodology based on the principles of immersive engagement and fictional enquiry, creating scenarios which are inter-connected through a coherent narrative arc, to encourage participant immersion within a realistic setting. The aim was to ground human interactions with this technology in a coherent, meaningful experience. Nine participants interacted with a robotic agent in a smart home environment twice a week over a month, with each interaction framed within a greater narrative arc. Participant responses, both to the scenarios and the robotic agents used within them are discussed, suggesting that the prototyping methodology was successful in conveying a meaningful interaction experience.","PeriodicalId":90037,"journal":{"name":"Paladyn : journal of behavioral robotics","volume":"1 1","pages":"66 - 85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89190178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}