Multidisciplinary computer science through conducting robots

Salgian, Andrea; Ault, Christopher; Nakra, Teresa Marrin; Wang, Yunfeng; Stone, Meredith

doi:10.1145/1953163.1953229

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 8 publications

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“…In addition to assisting with the validation of measurement techniques, the results of qualitative analysis could generate new research questions and bridge interdisciplinary communications -e.g., between roboticists, computer scientists, and social scientists (to name a few). The 'Open Science' movement means that more resources are accessible for free, however specialist language continues to be a barrier for understanding and collaboration (Salgian et al, 2011). By using the words of the general public to compliment quantitative experimental data, this could help to bridge interdisciplinary barriers.…”

Section: Open Ended Questions Add Research Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

“Hit the Robot on the Head With This Mallet” – Making a Case for Including More Open Questions in HRI Research

Riddoch

Cross

2021

Front. Robot. AI

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Researchers continue to devise creative ways to explore the extent to which people perceive robots as social agents, as opposed to objects. One such approach involves asking participants to inflict ‘harm’ on a robot. Researchers are interested in the length of time between the experimenter issuing the instruction and the participant complying, and propose that relatively long periods of hesitation might reflect empathy for the robot, and perhaps even attribution of human-like qualities, such as agency and sentience. In a recent experiment, we adapted the so-called ‘hesitance to hit’ paradigm, in which participants were instructed to hit a humanoid robot on the head with a mallet. After standing up to do so (signaling intent to hit the robot), participants were stopped, and then took part in a semi-structured interview to probe their thoughts and feelings during the period of hesitation. Thematic analysis of the responses indicate that hesitation not only reflects perceived socialness, but also other factors including (but not limited to) concerns about cost, mallet disbelief, processing of the task instruction, and the influence of authority. The open-ended, free responses participants provided also offer rich insights into individual differences with regards to anthropomorphism, perceived power imbalances, and feelings of connection toward the robot. In addition to aiding understanding of this measurement technique and related topics regarding socialness attribution to robots, we argue that greater use of open questions can lead to exciting new research questions and interdisciplinary collaborations in the domain of social robotics.

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Section: Open Ended Questions Add Research Valuementioning

confidence: 99%