Karl F. MacDorman & Hiroshi Ishiguro - Figures & Descriptions

FAST BREAKING PAPERS - 2008

June 2008

Karl F. MacDorman & Hiroshi Ishiguro talk with ScienceWatch.com and answer a few questions about this month's Fast Breaking Paper in the field of Social Sciences, general. The authors have also sent along images of their work.
	Article Title: The uncanny advantage of using androids in cognitive and social science research Authors: MacDorman, KF;Ishiguro, H Journal: INTERACT STUD Return to interview.

Figures and descriptions:

Figure 1:

Figure 1: Karl MacDorman ponders the design of an experiment for Repliee Q2 at the Ishiguro Laboratory, Osaka University, May 2005. Photo Credit: Peter Kahn. View larger image (allow time to load). Close new browser window to return to this page.

Figure 2:

Figure 2: Former Master's student, Yasukazu Nagatomi, shakes hands with Repliee Q2, August 2005. Photo Credit: Karl MacDorman. View very large image (allow time to load). Close new browser window to return to this page.

Figure 3:

Figure 3: From left to right, top to bottom: Hiroshi Ishiguro, PhD (Osaka University), Professor, Osaka University, Repliee Q2, Karl F. MacDorman, PhD (Cambridge), Associate Professor, Indiana University, Takashi Minato, PhD (Osaka University), Assistant Professor, Osaka University, and Tetsushi Ikeda (Kyoto University), Assistant Professor, Osaka University. This photo was taken in August 2005 in the Ishiguro Laboratory at Osaka University. Photo Credit: Karl MacDorman. View larger image (allow time to load). Close new browser window to return to this page.

Figure 4:

Figure 4: Kokoro Co., Ltd. assisting with the preparation of Repliee Q2, Tokyo, December 2004. Photo Credit: Kokoro Co., Ltd. View larger image (allow time to load). Close new browser window to return to this page.

Figure 5:

Figure 5: Android science provides synthetic and analytical methods to understand mechanisms underlying interaction. Android science is a new interdisciplinary framework for studying human cognition and interaction based on the finding that humanlike robots can elicit the sorts of responses people direct toward each other. As a result androids can be used as stand-ins for human participants in social, psychological, cognitive, and neuroscientific experiments. This brings several advantages. First, as an experimental apparatus, an android can be more precisely controlled than a human actor. Second, unlike a video or computer simulation of a human being, an android has physical presence. Third, in comparing human-human and human-android interaction, an android controls for the effects of appearance. For many experiments, an android offers a good balance between experimental control and eco-logical validity in supporting humanlike interaction. The figure shows the potential for using human-android interaction in designing and testing hypotheses in the social and cognitive sciences. For example, in cognitive neuroscience, we can study the effects of appearance on brain activity during the perception of intentional action, and in developmental and social psychology, we can study the effects of contingency and timing on interactions that involve human infants or autistic children. An experimental setting for human-android interaction also provides a testing ground for modeling how interactions emerge from close co-ordination among cognitive, neural and behavioral events.

Figure 6:

Figure 6: The robotics professor Masahiro Mori graphed what he considered to be the relation between human likeness and perceived familiarity: familiarity increases with human likeness until a point is reached at which subtle imperfections cause a robot to appear creepy. He called this the uncanny valley. According to Mori, movement amplifies the effect.

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2008 : June 2008 - Fast Breaking Papers : Karl F. MacDorman & Hiroshi Ishiguro - Figures & Descriptions

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