Using Near Infrared Spectroscopy to Index Temporal Changes in Affect in Realistic Human-Robot Interactions

What does prefrontal cortex activation 🧠 ⚡ during interactions with a robot 🤖 indicate?

Library › Papers on Children, Robots, and AI

1. Young Children and ChatGPT: Parents' Use of ChatGPT in Parenting

2. Exploring Parent's Needs for Children-Centered AI to Support Preschoolers' Storytelling and Reading Activities

3. Child–Robot Interaction Across Cultures: How Does Playing a Game With a Social Robot Compare to Playing a Game Alone or With a Friend?

4. Culturally Variable Preferences for Robot Design and Use in South Korea, Turkey, and the United States

5. Child–robot relationship formation: A narrative review of empirical research

6. Shall I Trust You? From Child–Robot Interaction to Trusting Relationships

7. Aladdin’s Genie or Pandora’s Box for early childhood education? Experts chat on the roles, challenges, and developments of ChatGPT

8. Challenging ChatGPT 'Intelligence' with human tools: a neuropsychological investigation on prefrontal functioning of a large language model

9. Dialogue with a Conversational Agent Promotes Children's Story Comprehension via Enhancing Engagement

10. Investigation on Empathy Towards Humans and Robots using fMRI

11. Using Near Infrared Spectroscopy to Index Temporal Changes in Affect in Realistic Human-Robot Interactions

12. "Robovie, you'll have to go into the closet now": Children's social and moral relationships with a humanoid robot

13. The Now and Future of ChatGPT and GPT in Psychiatry

14. Digital Inequality and Developmental Trajectories of Low-income, Immigrant, and Minority Children

15. Family Learning Talk in AI Literacy Learning Activities

16. A Social Robot Connected with ChatGPT to Improve Cognitive Functioning in ASD Subjects

17. Humans Create More Novelty Than ChatGPT When Asked to Retell a Story

18. When He Feels Cold, He Goes to the Seahorse—Blending Generative AI into Multimaterial Storymaking for Family Expressive Arts Therapy

19. Large Language Models Have Divergent Effects on Self-Perceptions of Mind and the Attributes Considered Uniquely Human

20. Ascribing Consciousness to Artificial Intelligence: Human-AI Interaction and its Carry-Over Effects on Human-Human Interaction

21. Assessment of Engagement and Learning During Child-Robot Interaction using EEG Signals

22. Can Machines Think? Interaction and Perspective Taking with Robots Investigated via fMRI

23. Investigating Conversational Dynamics in Human-Robot Interaction with fMRI

24. "Rosita Reads With My Family": Developing A Bilingual Conversational Agent to Support Parent-Child Shared Reading

Today, I read an interesting paper about brain and human robot interaction:

Authors:
Megan Strait
Matthias Scheutz

I wrote a summary:

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive brain imaging technique that uses near-infrared light to measure changes in blood oxygen levels in the brain, which reflect brain activation.

fNIRS has advantages over other brain imaging methods, such as greater portability compared to fMRI (allowing participants to wear a cap and move around) and better spatial resolution than EEG.

In this pioneering study, researchers used fNIRS to assess participants' emotional responses during real-time interactions with robots.

The study involved 38 young adult participants and included two types of robots: one stereotypical and one more human-like, across three conditions: observing the robot and another human remotely, remotely interacting with a robot, and directly interacting with a robot.

The fNIRS results during the first interaction suggested that brain activation, specifically in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), was highest when participants interacted directly with the more human-like robot.

Interestingly, contrary to some findings that suggest participants prefer human-like features in robots, PFC activation reflected stronger emotional responses, primarily eeriness and aversion, toward the human-like robot. The PFC activation may also indicate increased efforts in emotion regulation among participants.

However, during repeated interactions, this initial heightened brain activation toward the human-like robot was not observed.

💡 These findings suggest that repeated interactions with a robot may reduce participants' initial negative emotional responses and make them feel more comfortable during the interaction.

💡 This study provides early insights into how the PFC responds to different types of robots and how these responses can be interpreted alongside participants' self-reported emotional experiences.

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12. "Robovie, you'll have to go into the closet now": Children's social and moral relationships with a humanoid robot