HRI

Yang^2

16/12/2015 (W) 

Problem Statement

How to gracefully resolve ‘challenging topics/moments’ in human-robot interaction/conversations

Zara 
Off-Topic
Papers

Zara

Zara Conversation Script 

0. Figure out gender, smile/not, language preference

1. Early childhood memory 

2. Biggest challenge at work 

3. Story of a dog, a man, and a tree

4. Liking Zara

Conversation Tree 

http://bit.ly/1QpSUkl

My thoughts: 

• The current order of the questions being asked (it starts out being very personal)
  • Layering questions from innocuous to depth
    • Arthur Aron et al (1997) The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness
    • The 36 Questions (NYT) 
• Anticipating where the conversation breakers will be: 
  • Tree, dog, man 
  • Challenge

Potential Looks  

FurHat Robot (*unconfirmed)

http://bit.ly/1lKNcwV

Features: 

- back projected robot hat

- 3D animation displayed from a projected in the neck to a mirror in the head

- The plastic mold is shaped exactly like the 3D head  

- Rich facial expressions 0:33-34

Going off topic  

What does going off topic mean? 

What are some examples of going off topic? 

Why do people go off-topic? 

How do machines and humans deal with going off topic? 

Define going off topic

Irrelevant to the subject in question

What are examples of Going off topic  

• Going off a tangent​
• Changing subject matter 
• going deeper into an irrelevant subject

Phrases that indicates going off topic: 

• "speaking of which..."
• "by the way..."
• "Oh, you know..." 

Why do people going off topic with...

- avoidance 

- misinterpretation and miscommunication

   - message heard was not decoded correctly

   - message sent was not framed properly 

- emotional discomfort 

   - past trauma, psychological distress

- too intimate (oversharing) 

- context: too loud, speaker is too soft, language capabilities, cultural sensitivity 

What are cues to intentionally and unintentionally going off topic? 

Humans

Machines 

- Challenge 

- Outsmart

- Curiosity

   - about the limits

   - what the robot can and cannot do

   - how do robots differ from humans 

- Break the machine

​- Defensive

- Avoidance

How to deal with off-topics

When an error occurs: 

"Sorry, I don't understand" 

"System Error"

"Please try again" 

Or simply continue with the coded program 

Ignore the problem: "Ok."

Humans

Remediation:

Remind the person of the original topic

Guide person back to the conversation 

  -- Finding Nemo's Dory 

Avoidance: 

Go with the flow

Pretend and play along 

Machines 

Socially Intelligent Robots: dimensions of hri

Kerstin Dautenhahn

Key Components

• Dimensions of HRI
• Requirements on social skills for robots
• Conceptual space of HRI studies
• 2 HRI research
  • the development of a cognitive robot compansion
  • robotiquette: social rules
  • educational/therapeutic toys for autistic children
    • concept of interactive emergence in human-child interactions 
    • different types of play 
  • examine different paradigms regarding social relationships of robots and people 

Nature of AI

• Dimensions of HRI
• Requirements on social skills for robots
• Conceptual space of HRI studies
• 2 HRI research
  • the development of a cognitive robot compansion
  • robotiquette: social rules
  • educational/therapeutic toys for autistic children
    • concept of interactive emergence in human-child interactions 
    • different types of play 
  • examine different paradigms regarding social relationships of robots and people