Embodiment in Socially Interactive Robots

Embodiment in Socially Interactive Robots
Author: Eric Deng
Publisher: Foundations and Trends (R) in Robotics
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2019-01-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9781680835465

Socially interactive robots provide entertainment, information, and/or assistance; this last category is typically encompassed by socially assistive robotics. In all cases, such robots can achieve their primary functions without performing functional physical work. This monograph reviews the existing work that explores the role of physical embodiment in socially interactive robots. This class consists of robots that are not only capable of engaging in social interaction with humans, but are using primarily their social capabilities to perform their desired functions. This monograph explores the embodiment hypothesis that physical embodiment has a measurable effect on performance and perception of social interactions in socially interactive robotics. It presents a thorough review of existing work and analyzes existing results and approaches to embodiment to determine the current state of the embodiment hypothesis. This monograph is a comprehensive and in depth overview of embodiment in socially interactive robots that is a starting point for researchers and students beginning their own research in the area.

Critical Reflections and Politics on Advancing Women in the Academy

Critical Reflections and Politics on Advancing Women in the Academy
Author: Moeke-Pickering, Taima
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2020-04-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1799836207

Women in the Academy are raising issues of pay parity, equal representation on committees, increased leadership positions, stories of resilience, and mentorship espousing changes at all levels including teaching, research, and administration. These strategies demand interrogation, and larger questions are being asked about the place of women empowerment worldviews in the dominant intellectual traditions of the Academy. Further, the trend to make changes requires an exploration of new transformational approaches that draw on critical theory to resist discrimination, sexism, and racism and support resistance and sustainable empowerment strategies. Critical Reflections and Politics on Advancing Women in the Academy is a critical scholarly publication that seeks to make the Academy responsive and inclusive for women advancement and sustainable empowerment strategies by broadening the understanding of why women in the Academy are overlooked in leadership positions, why there is a pay parity deficit, and what is being done to change the situation. Featuring a wide range of topics such as mentorship, curriculum design, and equality, this book is ideal for policymakers, academicians, deans, provosts, chancellors, administrators, researchers, and students.

Computation for Metaphors, Analogy, and Agents

Computation for Metaphors, Analogy, and Agents
Author: Chrystopher L. Nehaniv
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2003-06-26
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3540488340

This volume brings together the work of researchers from various disciplines where aspects of descriptive, mathematical, computational or design knowledge concerning metaphor and analogy, especially in the context of agents, have emerged. The book originates from an international workshop on Computation for Metaphors, Analogy, and Agents (CMAA), held in Aizu, Japan in April 1998. The 19 carefully reviewed and revised papers presented together with an introduction by the volume editor are organized into sections on Metaphor and Blending, Embodiment, Interaction, Imitation, Situated Mapping in Space and Time, Algebraic Engineering: Respecting Structure, and a Sea-Change in Viewpoints.

Embodied Conversational Agents

Embodied Conversational Agents
Author: Justine Cassell
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2000
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9780262032780

This book describes research in all aspects of the design, implementation, and evaluation of embodied conversational agents as well as details of specific working systems. Embodied conversational agents are computer-generated cartoonlike characters that demonstrate many of the same properties as humans in face-to-face conversation, including the ability to produce and respond to verbal and nonverbal communication. They constitute a type of (a) multimodal interface where the modalities are those natural to human conversation: speech, facial displays, hand gestures, and body stance; (b) software agent, insofar as they represent the computer in an interaction with a human or represent their human users in a computational environment (as avatars, for example); and (c) dialogue system where both verbal and nonverbal devices advance and regulate the dialogue between the user and the computer. With an embodied conversational agent, the visual dimension of interacting with an animated character on a screen plays an intrinsic role. Not just pretty pictures, the graphics display visual features of conversation in the same way that the face and hands do in face-to-face conversation among humans. This book describes research in all aspects of the design, implementation, and evaluation of embodied conversational agents as well as details of specific working systems. Many of the chapters are written by multidisciplinary teams of psychologists, linguists, computer scientists, artists, and researchers in interface design. The authors include Elisabeth Andre, Norm Badler, Gene Ball, Justine Cassell, Elizabeth Churchill, James Lester, Dominic Massaro, Cliff Nass, Sharon Oviatt, Isabella Poggi, Jeff Rickel, and Greg Sanders.

Technology Integration and Foundations for Effective Leadership

Technology Integration and Foundations for Effective Leadership
Author: Wang, Shuyan
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 443
Release: 2012-12-31
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1466626879

As new technology continues to emerge, the training and education of learning new skills and strategies become important for professional development. Therefore, technology leadership plays a vital role for the use of technology in organizations by providing guidance in the many aspects of using technologies. Technology Integration and Foundations for Effective Leadership provides detailed information on the aspects of effective technology leadership, highlighting instructions on creating a technology plan as well as the successful integration of technology into the educational environment. This reference source aims to offer a sense of structure and basic information on designing, developing, and evaluating technology projects to ensure maximum success.

The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents

The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents
Author: Birgit Lugrin
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool
Total Pages: 538
Release: 2021-09-17
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1450387233

The Handbook on Socially Interactive Agents provides a comprehensive overview of the research fields of Embodied Conversational Agents, Intelligent Virtual Agents, and Social Robotics. Socially Interactive Agents (SIAs), whether virtually or physically embodied, are autonomous agents that are able to perceive an environment including people or other agents, reason, decide how to interact, and express attitudes such as emotions, engagement, or empathy. They are capable of interacting with people and one another in a socially intelligent manner using multimodal communicative behaviors, with the goal to support humans in various domains. Written by international experts in their respective fields, the book summarizes research in the many important research communities pertinent for SIAs, while discussing current challenges and future directions. The handbook provides easy access to modeling and studying SIAs for researchers and students, and aims at further bridging the gap between the research communities involved. In two volumes, the book clearly structures the vast body of research. The first volume starts by introducing what is involved in SIAs research, in particular research methodologies and ethical implications of developing SIAs. It further examines research on appearance and behavior, focusing on multimodality. Finally, social cognition for SIAs is investigated using different theoretical models and phenomena such as theory of mind or pro-sociality. The second volume starts with perspectives on interaction, examined from different angles such as interaction in social space, group interaction, or long-term interaction. It also includes an extensive overview summarizing research and systems of human–agent platforms and of some of the major application areas of SIAs such as education, aging support, autism, and games.

Understanding Intelligence

Understanding Intelligence
Author: Rolf Pfeifer
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 724
Release: 2001-07-27
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9780262250795

The book includes all the background material required to understand the principles underlying intelligence, as well as enough detailed information on intelligent robotics and simulated agents so readers can begin experiments and projects on their own. By the mid-1980s researchers from artificial intelligence, computer science, brain and cognitive science, and psychology realized that the idea of computers as intelligent machines was inappropriate. The brain does not run "programs"; it does something entirely different. But what? Evolutionary theory says that the brain has evolved not to do mathematical proofs but to control our behavior, to ensure our survival. Researchers now agree that intelligence always manifests itself in behavior—thus it is behavior that we must understand. An exciting new field has grown around the study of behavior-based intelligence, also known as embodied cognitive science, "new AI," and "behavior-based AI." This book provides a systematic introduction to this new way of thinking. After discussing concepts and approaches such as subsumption architecture, Braitenberg vehicles, evolutionary robotics, artificial life, self-organization, and learning, the authors derive a set of principles and a coherent framework for the study of naturally and artificially intelligent systems, or autonomous agents. This framework is based on a synthetic methodology whose goal is understanding by designing and building. The book includes all the background material required to understand the principles underlying intelligence, as well as enough detailed information on intelligent robotics and simulated agents so readers can begin experiments and projects on their own. The reader is guided through a series of case studies that illustrate the design principles of embodied cognitive science.

Embodied Artificial Intelligence

Embodied Artificial Intelligence
Author: Fumiya Iida
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2004-07-08
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 354022484X

Originating from a Dagstuhl seminar, the collection of papers presented in this book constitutes on the one hand a representative state-of-the-art survey of embodied artificial intelligence, and on the other hand the papers identify the important research trends and directions in the field. Following an introductory overview, the 23 papers are organized into topical sections on - philosophical and conceptual issues - information, dynamics, and morphology - principles of embodiment for real-world applications - developmental approaches - artificial evolution and self-reconfiguration

Social Robots: Technological, Societal and Ethical Aspects of Human-Robot Interaction

Social Robots: Technological, Societal and Ethical Aspects of Human-Robot Interaction
Author: Oliver Korn
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2019-07-01
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3030171078

Social robots not only work with humans in collaborative workspaces – we meet them in shopping malls and even more personal settings like health and care. Does this imply they should become more human, able to interpret and adequately respond to human emotions? Do we want them to help elderly people? Do we want them to support us when we are old ourselves? Do we want them to just clean and keep things orderly – or would we accept them helping us to go to the toilet, or even feed us if we suffer from Parkinson’s disease? The answers to these questions differ from person to person. They depend on cultural background, personal experiences – but probably most of all on the robot in question. This book covers the phenomenon of social robots from the historic roots to today’s best practices and future perspectives. To achieve this, we used a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach, incorporating findings from computer scientists, engineers, designers, psychologists, doctors, nurses, historians and many more. The book also covers a vast spectrum of applications, from collaborative industrial work over education to sales. Especially for developments with a high societal impact like robots in health and care settings, the authors discuss not only technology, design and usage but also ethical aspects. Thus this book creates both a compendium and a guideline, helping to navigate the design space for future developments in social robotics.

Humanoid Robotics: A Reference

Humanoid Robotics: A Reference
Author: Prahlad Vadakkepat
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-02-14
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9789400760455

Humanoid Robotics provides a comprehensive compilation of developments in the conceptualization, design and development of humanoid robots and related technologies. Human beings have built the environment they occupy (living spaces, instruments and vehicles) to suit two-legged systems. Building systems, especially in robotics, that are compatible with the well-established, human-based surroundings and which could naturally interact with humans is an ultimate goal for all researches and engineers. Humanoid Robots are systems (i.e. robots) which mimic human behavior. Humanoids provide a platform to study the construction of systems that behave and interact like humans. A broad range of applications ranging from daily housework to complex medical surgery, deep ocean exploration, and other potentially dangerous tasks are possible using humanoids. In addition, the study of humanoid robotics provides a platform to understand the mechanisms and offers a physical visual of how humans interact, think, and react with the surroundings and how such behaviors could be reassembled and reconstructed. Currently, the most challenging issue with bipedal humanoids is to make them balance on two legs, The purportedly simple act of finding the best balance that enables easy walking, jumping and running requires some of the most sophisticated development of robotic systems- those that will ultimately mimic fully the diversity and dexterity of human beings. Other typical human-like interactions such as complex thought and conversations on the other hand, also pose barriers for the development of humanoids because we are yet to understand fully the way in which we humans interact with our environment and consequently to replicate this in humanoids.