Section: Research Program

Sociable Interaction with Smart Objects

Reeves and Nass argue that a social interface may be the truly universal interface [Reeves 98]. Current systems lack ability for social interaction because they are unable to perceive and understand humans or to learn from interaction with humans. One of the goals of the research to be performed in Pervasive Interaction is to provide such abilities.

Work in research area RA3 will demonstrate the use of situation models for sociable interaction with smart objects and companion robots. We will explore the use of situation models as a representation for sociable interaction. Our goal in this research is to develop methods to endow an artificial agent with the ability to acquire social common sense using the implicit feedback obtained from interaction with people. We believe that such methods can provide a foundation for socially polite man-machine interaction, and ultimately for other forms of cognitive abilities. We propose to capture social common sense by training the appropriateness of behaviors in social situations. A key challenge is to employ an adequate representation for social situations.

Knowledge for sociable interaction will be encoded as a network of situations that capture both linguistic and non-verbal interaction cues and proper behavioral responses. Stereotypical social interactions will be represented as trajectories through the situation graph. We will explore methods that start from simple stereotypical situation models and extending a situation graph through the addition of new situations and the splitting of existing situations. An important aspect of social common sense is the ability to act appropriately in social situations. We propose to learn the association between behaviors and social situation using reinforcement learning. Situation models will be used as a structure for learning appropriateness of actions and behaviors that may be chosen in each situation, using reinforcement learning to determine a score for appropriateness based on feedback obtained by observing partners during interaction.

Work in this research area will focus on four specific Research Actions

Moving with people

Our objective in this area is to establish the foundations for robot motions that are aware of human social situation that move in a manner that complies with the social context, social expectations, social conventions and cognitive abilities of humans. Appropriate and socially compliant interactions require the ability for real time perception of the identity, social role, actions, activities and intents of humans. Such perception can be used to dynamically model the current situation in order to understand the situation and to compute the appropriate course of action for the robot depending on the task at hand.

To reach this objective, we propose to investigate three interacting research areas:

• Modeling the context and situation of human activities for motion planning

• Planning and acting in a social context.

• Identifying and modeling interaction behaviors.

In particular, we will investigate techniques that allow a tele-presence robot, such as the BEAM system, to autonomously navigate in crowds of people as may be found at the entry to a conference room, or in the hallway of a scientific meeting.

Understanding and communicating intentions from motion

This research area concerns the communication through motion. When two or more people move as a group, their motion is regulated by implicit rules that signal a shared sense of social conventions and social roles. For example, moving towards someone while looking directly at them signals an intention for engagement. In certain cultures, subtle rules dictate who passes through a door first or last. When humans move in groups, they implicitly communicate intentions with motion. In this research area, we will explore the scientific literature on proxemics and the social sciences on such movements, in order to encode and evaluate techniques for socially appropriate motion by robots.

Socially aware interaction

This research area concerns socially aware man-machine interaction. Appropriate and socially compliant interaction requires the ability for real time perception of the identity, social role, actions, activities and intents of humans. Such perception can be used to dynamically model the current situation in order to understand the context and to compute the appropriate course of action for the task at hand. Performing such interactions in manner that respects and complies with human social norms and conventions requires models for social roles and norms of behavior as well as the ability to adapt to local social conventions and individual user preferences. In this research area, we will complement research area 3.2 with other forms of communication and interaction, including expression with stylistic face expressions rendered on a tablet, facial gestures, body motions and speech synthesis. We will experiment with use of commercially available tool for spoken language interaction in conjunction with expressive gestures.

Stimulating affection and persuasion with affective devices.

This research area concerns technologies that can stimulate affection and engagement, as well as induce changes in behavior. When acting as a coach or cooking advisor, smart objects must be credible and persuasive. One way to achieve this goal is to express affective feedbacks while interacting. This can be done using sound, light and/or complex moves when the system is composed of actuators.

Research in this area will address 3 questions:

1. How do human perceive affective signals expressed by smart objects (including robots)?

2. How does physical embodiment effect perception of affect by humans?

3. What are the most effective models and tools for animation of affective expression?

Both the physical form and the range of motion have important impact on the ability of a system to inspire affection. We will create new models to propose a generic animation model, and explore the effectiveness of different forms of motion in stimulating affect.

Bibliography

[Reeves 98] B. Reeves and C. Nass, The Media Equation: how People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places. Cambridge University Press, 1998.