Effective interactions between humans and robots are vital to achieving shared tasks in collaborative processes. Robots can utilize diverse communication channels to interact with humans, such as hearing, speech, sight, touch, and learning. Our focus, amidst the various means of interactions between humans and robots, is on three emerging frontiers that significantly impact the future directions of human–robot interaction (HRI): (i) human–robot collaboration inspired by human–human collaboration, (ii) brain-computer interfaces, and (iii) emotional intelligent perception. First, we explore advanced techniques for human–robot collaboration, covering a range of methods from compliance and performance-based approaches to synergistic and learning-based strategies, including learning from demonstration, active learning, and learning from complex tasks. Then, we examine innovative uses of brain-computer interfaces for enhancing HRI, with a focus on applications in rehabilitation, communication, brain state and emotion recognition. Finally, we investigate the emotional intelligence in robotics, focusing on translating human emotions to robots via facial expressions, body gestures, and eye-tracking for fluid, natural interactions. Recent developments in these emerging frontiers and their impact on HRI were detailed and discussed. We highlight contemporary trends and emerging advancements in the field. Ultimately, this paper underscores the necessity of a multimodal approach in developing systems capable of adaptive behavior and effective interaction between humans and robots, thus offering a thorough understanding of the diverse modalities essential for maximizing the potential of HRI.
- Award ID(s):
- 2047867
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10392584
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Frontiers in Computer Science
- Volume:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 2624-9898
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
more » « less
Abstract -
Our daily observations tell us that the delivery of social sentiments and emotions differs between strangers and romantic partners. This work explores how relationship status influences our delivery and perception of social touches and emotions, by evaluating the physics of contact interactions. In a study with human participants, strangers and romantically involved touchers delivered emotional messages to receivers’ forearms. Physical contact interactions were measured using a customized 3D tracking system. The results indicate that strangers and romantic receivers recognize emotional messages with similar accuracy, but with higher levels of valence and arousal between romantic partners. Further investigation into the contact interactions which underlie the higher levels of valence and arousal reveals that a toucher tunes their strategy with their romantic partner. For example, when stroking, romantic touchers use velocities preferential to C-tactile afferents, and maintain contact for longer durations with larger contact areas. Notwithstanding, while we show that relationship intimacy influences the deployment of touch strategies, such impact is relatively subtle compared to distinctions between gestures, emotional messages, and individual preferences.more » « less
-
Due to the COVID-19 crisis, social distancing has been a necessary and effective means of reducing disease through decreased close human contact. However, there has been a corresponding increase in touch starvation due to limited physical contact. Our research seeks to create a solution for allowing individuals to safely communicate through touch over a distance. Our system consists of wearable sensors to measure the social touch gesture, which is then processed and sent to an array of voice coils in an actuator device.more » « less
-
more » « less
The overall goal of our research is to develop a system of intelligent multimodal affective pedagogical agents that are effective for different types of learners (Adamo et al., 2021). While most of the research on pedagogical agents tends to focus on the cognitive aspects of online learning and instruction, this project explores the less-studied role of affective (or emotional) factors. We aim to design believable animated agents that can convey realistic, natural emotions through speech, facial expressions, and body gestures and that can react to the students’ detected emotional states with emotional intelligence. Within the context of this goal, the specific objective of the work reported in the paper was to examine the extent to which the agents’ facial micro-expressions affect students’ perception of the agents’ emotions and their naturalness. Micro-expressions are very brief facial expressions that occur when a person either deliberately or unconsciously conceals an emotion being felt (Ekman &Friesen, 1969). Our assumption is that if the animated agents display facial micro expressions in addition to macro expressions, they will convey higher expressive richness and naturalness to the viewer, as “the agents can possess two emotional streams, one based on interaction with the viewer and the other based on their own internal state, or situation” (Queiroz et al. 2014, p.2).The work reported in the paper involved two studies with human subjects. The objectives of the first study were to examine whether people can recognize micro-expressions (in isolation) in animated agents, and whether there are differences in recognition based on the agent’s visual style (e.g., stylized versus realistic). The objectives of the second study were to investigate whether people can recognize the animated agents’ micro-expressions when integrated with macro-expressions, the extent to which the presence of micro + macro-expressions affect the perceived expressivity and naturalness of the animated agents, the extent to which exaggerating the micro expressions, e.g. increasing the amplitude of the animated facial displacements affects emotion recognition and perceived agent naturalness and emotional expressivity, and whether there are differences based on the agent’s design characteristics. In the first study, 15 participants watched eight micro-expression animations representing four different emotions (happy, sad, fear, surprised). Four animations featured a stylized agent and four a realistic agent. For each animation, subjects were asked to identify the agent’s emotion conveyed by the micro-expression. In the second study, 234 participants watched three sets of eight animation clips (24 clips in total, 12 clips per agent). Four animations for each agent featured the character performing macro-expressions only, four animations for each agent featured the character performing macro- + micro-expressions without exaggeration, and four animations for each agent featured the agent performing macro + micro-expressions with exaggeration. Participants were asked to recognize the true emotion of the agent and rate the emotional expressivity ad naturalness of the agent in each clip using a 5-point Likert scale. We have collected all the data and completed the statistical analysis. Findings and discussion, implications for research and practice, and suggestions for future work will be reported in the full paper. ReferencesAdamo N., Benes, B., Mayer, R., Lei, X., Meyer, Z., &Lawson, A. (2021). Multimodal Affective Pedagogical Agents for Different Types of Learners. In: Russo D., Ahram T., Karwowski W., Di Bucchianico G., Taiar R. (eds) Intelligent Human Systems Integration 2021. IHSI 2021. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 1322. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68017-6_33Ekman, P., &Friesen, W. V. (1969, February). Nonverbal leakage and clues to deception. Psychiatry, 32(1), 88–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332747.1969.11023575 Queiroz, R. B., Musse, S. R., &Badler, N. I. (2014). Investigating Macroexpressions and Microexpressions in Computer Graphics Animated Faces. Presence, 23(2), 191-208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/
-
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flight paths have been shown to communicate meaning to human observers, similar to human gestural communication. This paper presents the results of a UAV gesture perception study designed to assess how observer viewpoint perspective may impact how humans perceive the shape of UAV gestural motion. Robot gesture designers have demonstrated that robots can indeed communicate meaning through gesture; however, many of these results are limited to an idealized range of viewer perspectives and do not consider how the perception of a robot gesture may suffer from obfuscation or self-occlusion from some viewpoints. This paper presents the results of three online user-studies that examine participants' ability to accurately perceive the intended shape of two-dimensional UAV gestures from varying viewer perspectives. We used a logistic regression model to characterize participant gesture classification accuracy, demonstrating that viewer perspective does impact how participants perceive the shape of UAV gestures. Our results yielded a viewpoint angle threshold from beyond which participants were able to assess the intended shape of a gesture's motion with 90% accuracy. We also introduce a perceptibility score to capture user confidence, time to decision, and accuracy in labeling and to understand how differences in flight paths impact perception across viewpoints. These findings will enable UAV gesture systems that, with a high degree of confidence, ensure gesture motions can be accurately perceived by human observers.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2022.826637
