Emotional Reasoning in the Human-Robot Interaction using Cognitive Robotics (PART-1)

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Emotional Reasoning in the Human-Robot Interaction using Cognitive Robotics (PART-1)
                                               Image by montrealethics.ai

Introduction     

Social robots are referred to as ‘relational artifacts’ because they can physically interact with real-world items and people via verbal, non-verbal, word, and feelings. With the appearance of robots able to know-how and speaking in a human-like way, robots are predicted to pervasively input our normal environments and come to be social retailers with which human beings will socially have interaction for numerous purposes, ‘from like to war’.

Mental health care, in particular, is thought to be the area where robots technology will have the greatest impact shortly. Social robots have been successfully introduced in mental healthcare scenarios for a variety of purposes, including as companions for older adults, improving psychosocial outcomes, preventing cognitive decline, and increasing the effectiveness of interventions targeting children with autism spectrum disorders.

Shortly, robots are expected to have the greatest impact, especially in the treatment of mental disorders. Social robots have been successfully introduced into mental health scenarios for a variety of purposes, including companionship of the elderly, improving psychosocial outcomes, preventing cognitive decline, and improving the effectiveness of interventions for children with autism spectrum disorders.

Brief Cognitive Testing

The use of brief cognitive testing (BCT) is on the rise. In contrast to extensive neuropsychological test batteries, BCT refers to the fast assessment of a limited selection of cognitive processes for the early identification of individuals who require a more thorough evaluation. As a result, BCT is increasingly being utilized in primary care and other settings, such as workplaces and schools to assess the needs of mental health conditions and a wide range of nonclinical groups.

The value of BCT can also be shown in educational settings, as it is used to identify vulnerable and gifted kids. With social robots becoming more common in classrooms, it's not hard to picture them being used to assessing students' cognitive capacities by combining the usual benefits of technology – such as quick and precise data collection – with entertaining and flexible assessment scenarios.

BCT can be used in primary care to detect the first signs of dementia before any noticeable functional impairment. Unfortunately, due to a lack of time and resources on the part of health providers, BCT is frequently not conducted on time, resulting in delayed dementia diagnosis. As social robots are increasingly used with older adults without cognitive impairment to engage them in cognitive games and physical exercise, reliance on devices could also track human cognitive state. Human interaction partners could be a useful strategy to extend BCT coverage to an ageing population.

BCT is also extensively utilized in the treatment of older workers who are at risk of cognitive impairment. In this perspective, robot-assisted BCT could be beneficial in dangerous workplaces where people are doing complex human-robot teaming activities. By giving the robot the ability to infer the mental capacities of the interaction partner through simple, structured interactions, the robot will be able to control the complexity of the interaction as well as Continuously estimate sobriety and results with human staff assistance, or refer them for a more comprehensive assessment if necessary. 

Given this possibility, we decided it was our responsibility as researchers to study how individuals might behave during a quick cognitive examination conducted by a robot, and compare this to a similar situation involving a human interlocutor.

Emotional Process in HRI

Previous research on emotional processes in human-robot interaction has frequently supported the notion that emotions cause experiential (e.g., feeling furious), behavioural (e.g., severe frown), and physiological (e.g., heart rate acceleration) outputs. These outputs can be classified into two bipolar but separate categories of emotional experience: valence (how positive or negative) and arousal (arousal level) (how exciting or calming). While verbal behaviour, usually in the form of self-reports using Likert-type scales, can be used to assess valence, arousal may be better captured by examining embodied processes such as non-verbal behaviour and physiological reactions.

Valence

According to Watson and Tellegen, chemotherapy involves a positive effect (i.e. anger). Although less attention has been paid to the emotional responses humans display in regulating their interactions with a humanoid robot rather than a human agent, there is evidence that people had a more positive attitude towards human-like robots, but they found that was a lot like annoying cyborg humans. More recently, a study by Brink, Gray, & Wellman, (2017) found that children and adolescents aged 3-18 years perceived a very human-like robot as scary or strange compared to a robot. more abstract humanoid, considered to have a Neutral Appearance. 

Thus, in the general population, anthropomorphic realism in robots is believed to induce a negative psychological state marked by sensations strange or even disgusting in the perceiver, who can influence the behaviour of the observer. . For example, Mathur and Reichling (2016) have shown that humanoid robots with that are clearly machine-like in appearance are considered more reliable than human robots, as demonstrated by an experiment in which people tend to entrust more money to elders. versus second in a betting game. 

Based on this evidence, to reduce the risk of inducing negative reactions from participants that could affect cognitive performance, in the present study, we used a humanoid robot NAO to administer BCT, compare this engagement with that of a professional clinician.

Nonverbal Behaviour

Nonverbal behaviour is an essential aspect of face-to-face communication and conveys important emotional and emotional information. Non-verbal behaviour is defined as including more than communicative acts that do not carry linguistic content. In particular, staring behaviour plays an important role in regulating communication processes and is the most extensively studied nonverbal behaviour in the field of IRH. 

In particular, two related types of gaze behaviours appear to convey important information about the emotional state of interlocutors during patient-physician encounters: face-gazing and evasive eyes. During face-to-face interactions, conversation partners often tend to look each other in the face, signalling attention and interest in the interacting partner. 

In this context, interacting partners may make eye contact or look at each other, which is thought to modulate activity in the structure of the social brain network and to have a significant influence on the cognitive processes of the partners. current phone. For example, when alternating between a robot and another person, people spent more time looking at the robot's face than a human's when naming an object.

On the other hand, gaze distaste is described as the intentional deflection of gaze away from the face of the interlocutor. Avoiding staring in face-to-face communication is a nonverbal behaviour that can be caused by several reasons including cultural, social, emotional, and attentional. Negative emotional states such as anxiety or embarrassment during face-to-face communication can be triggered by negative emotional states. This avoidance may be related to increased self-focus during social gatherings in response to negative judgment by others.

Physiological Response

In the field of HRI, there is a growing interest in finding indicators of physiological arousal when humans interact with robots. For this purpose, the third aspect of emotional expression considered in this study relates to, a physiological sign of social activity. That is heart rate variability (HRV). HRV is a measure of the change in the time interval between successive heartbeats. It reflects the interaction between the sympathetic and parasympathetic effects on heart rate and conveys information about emotional responses to internal (body) and external (environmental) stimuli. 

According to one of the most influential sources in the field, HRV is particularly well suited to determining the degree to which a person perceives the environment as safe or threatening. Extensive empirical research supports an association between higher HRV levels and greater ability to recognize, express, and regulate emotions, so there are more adaptive social interactions.





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