Abstract:
According to the Theory of Natural Pedagogy, object-directed emotion provides different information based on context: in a communicative context, it conveys culturally shared knowledge about the emotional valence of an object, generalizable to others; in a non-communicative context, it reflects the personal preference of the person expressing the emotion. The researchers hypothesized that this genericity bias, present in infants, is a feature of human communication at all ages. They also investigated the effects of robotic ostensive cues.
To explore these hypotheses, the researchers presented object-directed emotions in both communicative and non-communicative contexts. Adult participants (N = 193) were divided into two groups: one experiencing the human-demonstrator condition, where a human actor displayed object-directed emotions, and the other experiencing the robot-demonstrator condition, where a robot displayed these emotions. Questionnaires assessed participants’ attachment styles and mentalization abilities.
The results revealed that (1) Natural Pedagogy Theory applies to humans across the lifespan; (2) Shared knowledge is context-dependent (communicative vs. non-communicative) and influenced by whether a human or robot shares the information; and (3) robotic ostensive cues attract participants’ attention. In the absence of these cues, participants did not perceive the robot as a communicative partner due to difficulties in attributing communicative intentions to the robot.
These findings suggest that robotic ostensive cues can facilitate human-robot interaction (HRI), which is also influenced by human attachment styles.
Reference:
Miraglia, L., Di Dio, C., Manzi, F. et al. Shared Knowledge in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Int J of Soc Robotics 16, 59–75 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-023-01034-9