Minimal Human Design Approach for sonzai-kan Media: Investigation of a Feeling of Human Presence

et al. 2019

Entropy

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Computer-mediated-communication (CMC) research suggests that unembodied media can surpass in-person communication due to their utility to bypass the nonverbal components of verbal communication such as physical presence and facial expressions. However, recent results on communicative humanoids suggest the importance of the physical embodiment of conversational partners. These contradictory findings are strengthened by the fact that almost all of these results are based on the subjective assessments of the behavioural impacts of these systems. To investigate these opposing views of the potential role of the embodiment during communication, we compare the effect of a physically embodied medium that is remotely controlled by a human operator with such unembodied media as telephones and video-chat systems on the frontal brain activity of human subjects, given the pivotal role of this region in social cognition and verbal comprehension. Our results provide evidence that communicating through a physically embodied medium affects the frontal brain activity of humans whose patterns potentially resemble those of in-person communication. These findings argue for the significance of embodiment in naturalistic scenarios of social interaction, such as storytelling and verbal comprehension, and the potential application of brain information as a promising sensory gateway in the characterization of behavioural responses in human-robot interaction.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential Effect of the Physical Embodiment on the Prefrontal Cortex Activity as Quantified by Its Entropy

et al. 2019

Entropy

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“…Our experimental settings included a humanoid robotic medium ( Figure 5 a), an audio speaker ( Figure 5 c), a video-chat system ( Figure 5 d), and a human (i.e., in-person, Figure 5 e). We chose a minimalist teleoperated android called, Telenoid R4 TM (Telenoid hereafter, Figure 5 b) [ 47 ]. Telenoid is approximately 50.0 cm long and weighs about 3.0 kg.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiscale Entropy Quantifies the Differential Effect of the Medium Embodiment on Older Adults Prefrontal Cortex during the Story Comprehension: A Comparative Analysis

et al. 2019

Entropy

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Todays’ communication media virtually impact and transform every aspect of our daily communication and yet the extent of their embodiment on our brain is unexplored. The study of this topic becomes more crucial, considering the rapid advances in such fields as socially assistive robotics that envision the use of intelligent and interactive media for providing assistance through social means. In this article, we utilize the multiscale entropy (MSE) to investigate the effect of the physical embodiment on the older people’s prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity while listening to stories. We provide evidence that physical embodiment induces a significant increase in MSE of the older people’s PFC activity and that such a shift in the dynamics of their PFC activation significantly reflects their perceived feeling of fatigue. Our results benefit researchers in age-related cognitive function and rehabilitation who seek for the adaptation of these media in robot-assistive cognitive training of the older people. In addition, they offer a complementary information to the field of human-robot interaction via providing evidence that the use of MSE can enable the interactive learning algorithms to utilize the brain’s activation patterns as feedbacks for improving their level of interactivity, thereby forming a stepping stone for rich and usable human mental model.

“…They included a humanoid robotic medium, an audio speaker, a video-chat system, and a human. We chose a minimalist teleoperated humanoid called, Telenoid R4 TM (Telenoid hereafter) 56 . Telenoid is approximately 50.0 cm long and weighs about 3.0 kg.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information Content of Prefrontal Cortex Activity Quantifies the Difficulty of Narrated Stories

et al. 2019

Sci Rep

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The ability to realize the individuals’ impressions during the verbal communication allows social robots to significantly facilitate their social interactions in such areas as child education and elderly care. However, such impressions are highly subjective and internalized and therefore cannot be easily comprehended through behavioural observations. Although brain-machine interface suggests the utility of the brain information in human-robot interaction, previous studies did not consider its potential for estimating the internal impressions during verbal communication. In this article, we introduce a novel approach to estimation of the individuals’ perceived difficulty of stories using the quantified information content of their prefrontal cortex activity. We demonstrate the robustness of our approach by showing its comparable performance in face-to-face, humanoid, speaker, and video-chat settings. Our results contribute to the field of socially assistive robotics by taking a step toward enabling robots determine their human companions’ perceived difficulty of conversations, thereby enabling these media to sustain their communication with humans by adapting to individuals’ pace and interest in response to conversational nuances and complexity.