On average, robots today can hold human interest for only about 10 hours, but in a new study, a humanoid robot dubbed QRIO (pronounced "curio") was accepted by human toddlers as "one of them" for 5 months before it was taken away. Why? Well it is no mystery that humans revel in the sense of touch. The premise that if a robot responded when touched - would improve the chances that the robot would be much more acceptable was proven out when QRIO was programmed to have a crude sense of touch. In the study, QRIO was introduced into a classroom of toddlers aged 18 months to 24 months. Children of this age group were chosen because they have no preconceived notions of robots and they communicate using touch as much as speech. In phase I of the experiment, which lasted 27 sessions, QRIO was instructed to interact with the children using its full behavioral repertoire, which included head-turning, dancing and giggling. At first, the children would touch the robot on its face, but as they warmed to him, the majority of their touches were to its hands and arms—a pattern the children also displayed toward each other. During phase II, which lasted 15 sessions, QRIO ignored the children's touches and danced throughout the session. At that point, the [children] quickly lost interest. When QRIO's ability to respond to touch and giggle were returned for three sessions in phase III, the children became friendly with the robot again. What proved even more interesting is that the response to touch is more important than being humaniform. QRIO only basically mimics the human form, this however seemed no impediment to it being accepted as long as it responded when touched.Thanks to Shaun A. Saunders for the post
pic credit Credit: J. Movellan et al., UCSD
3 comments:
As responsive tactility is seen as the great bonder, one way we'll press the 'droid flesh in the future will be will as our tools become tactilely responsive; be it our keyboards, our common power tools,automobiles, jetskis, chairs, beds, bathtubs, we will be surrounded by an endlessly responsive created environment that adapts effortlessly to one tactile commands and likely one's vital signs.
Of course should Big Sibling acquire the ability to hack in on one's android widgets...imagine, during a terror sweep, being detained by one's loo!
I am not sure I would equate tactilely adaptive to emotive response to a tactile input. And no I don't mean a beep when you press a button either! lol. Having a chair actively form itself you you when you sit in it is not the same thing as offering positive feedback to touch stimulus. The different being one you put a quarter in when it stops and the other establishes a human physic bond. Keyboard and their ilk already offer tactile feedback. it makes them easier to use, but does not make us love them or accept them as peers. I might be verging on simplistic here, but I see this evolving into something akin to psudo pets as it were ie. Bladerunner. Maybe not so bleak but able to fill the void where positive responses are not all confined to the audio but a feedback loop based totally in touch.
Because we perceive emotive context in received visual and tactile signals,and act accordingly, it is perhaps instinctual in our species to perceive what appear to be the physical manifestations of emotive reception of such signals by your droid as, indeed, emotional signals.
Individually a bunch of tactilely responsive tools are just that: tools; but in the aggregate, they would make up a sort of meta-creature peculiar to that house or other physical location. Not much beyond the wit of a turtle, but....homely enough.
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