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1. Perceived Morality of Robot and Human Transgressors Varies By Perceived Ability to Feel

   Georgiou, Nicholas; Flanagan, Theresa; Scassellati, Brian; Kushnir, Tamar (March 2025, ACM)

   Mistakes, failures, and transgressions committed by a robot are inevitable as robots become more involved in our society. When a wrong behavior occurs, it is important to understand what factors might affect how the robot is perceived by people. In this paper, we investigated how the type of transgressor (human or robot) and type of backstory depicting the transgressor's mental capabilities (default, physio-emotional, socio-emotional, or cognitive) shaped participants' perceptions of the transgressor's morality. We performed an online, between-subjects study in which participants (N=720) were first introduced to the transgressor and its backstory, and then viewed a video of a real-life robot or human pushing down a human. Although participants attributed similarly high intent to both the robot and the human, the human was generally perceived to have higher morality than the robot. However, the backstory that was told about the transgressors' capabilities affected their perceived morality. We found that robots with emotional backstories (i.e., physio-emotional or socio-emotional) had higher perceived moral knowledge, emotional knowledge, and desire than other robots. We also found that humans with cognitive backstories were perceived with less emotional and moral knowledge than other humans. Our findings have consequences for robot ethics and robot design for HRI. 

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2. Perceived location of touch

   https://doi.org/10.4249/scholarpedia.42285  

   Brooks, Jack; Medina, Jared (January 2017, Scholarpedia)
3. Perceived stress and semen quality

   https://doi.org/10.1111/andr.13301  

   Lund, Katrine H.; Laursen, Anne Sofie; Grønborg, Therese K.; Toft, Gunnar; Jacobsen, Bjarke H.; Wang, Tanran R.; Wesselink, Amelia K.; Hatch, Elizabeth E.; Sommer, Greg J.; Eisenberg, Michael L.; et al (January 2023, Andrology)

   Abstract BackgroundPsychological stress is prevalent among reproductive‐aged men. Assessment of semen quality for epidemiological studies is challenging as data collection is expensive and cumbersome, and studies evaluating the effect of perceived stress on semen quality are inconsistent. ObjectiveTo examine the association between perceived stress and semen quality. Material and methodsWe analyzed baseline data on 644 men (1,159 semen samples) from two prospective preconception cohort studies during 2015–2021: 592 in Pregnancy Study Online (PRESTO) and 52 in SnartForaeldre.dk (SF). At study entry, men aged ≥21 years (PRESTO) and ≥18 years (SF) trying to conceive without fertility treatment completed a questionnaire on reproductive and medical history, socio‐demographics, lifestyle, and the 10‐item version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; interquartile range [IQR] of scores: 0–40). After enrollment (median weeks: 2.1, IQR: 1.3–3.7), men were invited to perform in‐home semen testing, twice with 7–10 days between tests, using the Trak Male Fertility Testing System. Semen quality was characterized by semen volume, sperm concentration, and total sperm count. We fit generalized estimating equation linear regression models to estimate the percent difference in mean log‐transformed semen parameters by four PSS groups (<10, 10–14, 15–19, ≥20), adjusting for potential confounders. ResultsThe median PSS score and IQR was 15 (10–19), and 136 men (21.1%) had a PSS score ≥20. Comparing men with PSS scores ≥20 with <10, the adjusted percent difference was −2.7 (95% CI: −9.8; 5.0) for semen volume, 6.8 (95% CI: ‐10.9; 28.1) for sperm concentration, and 4.3 (95% CI: −13.8; 26.2) for total sperm count. ConclusionOur findings indicate that perceived stress is not materially associated with semen volume, sperm concentration, or total sperm count. 

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4. Detecting Perceived Emotions in Hurricane Disasters

   https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2020.acl-main.471  

   Desai, Shrey; Caragea, Cornelia; Li, Junyi Jessy (July 2020, Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics)

   null (Ed.)
5. Perceived and Expected Rates of Inflation of US Firms

   https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20231034  

   Candia, Bernardo; Weber, Michael; Gorodnichenko, Yuriy; Coibion, Olivier (May 2023, AEA Papers and Proceedings)

   The seminal work of Jonung (1981) showed that households' perceptions of inflation are the strongest predictor of households' inflation expectations. This fact has been a key ingredient for testing and developing theoretical models of how economic agents form expectations (e.g., the famous Lucas (1972) island model). However, little is known about whether perceptions play a similar role for firms. Using a new survey of American CEOs, we document that inflation perceptions shape the inflation expectations of firms just as Jonung (1981) found for households. These results suggest that information rigidities apply not only for households but also for CEOs. 

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