Brain Neurophysiology to Objectify the Social Competence of Conversational Agents

Abstract

We present an approach to objectify the social competence of artificial agents using human brain neurophysiology. Whole brain activity is recorded with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) while participants discuss either with a human confederate or an artificial agent. This allows a direct comparison of local brain responses, including deep brain structures invisible to other neuroimaging techniques, as a function of the nature of the interlocutor. The present data (9 participants, artificial agent is the robotic conversational head Furhat controlled with a Wizard of Oz procedure) demonstrates the feasibility of this approach, and results confirm an increased activity in the hypothalamic region when interacting with a human compared to an artificial agent.

Human vs computer: What effect does the source of information have on cognitive performance and achievement goal orientation?

“…Presenting instruction as coming from two different sources (human vs computer) should change the saliency of individual goal orientations. More specifically, task orientation and selforientation tend to be enhanced by teachers' provision of autonomy, recognition, and evaluation [45]. In addition, because students have an inherent need for relatedness to teachers, the incentive to outperform others by being better or not worse than others (other-approach vs otheravoidance orientation) is expected to be higher in the human compared to the computer condition.…”

“…Because the scarcity of cognitive resources available for a given task increases the saliency of the information source under evaluation, we contrasted different levels of task difficulty with the hypothesis that source effects should be most pronounced when the task is difficult [41][42][43][44]. In addition, considering that the usefulness of pedagogical agents  2 Even considering that information generated by a computer could be considered social in certain context, it would remain less social than the same information provided by a human agent [45].…”

Mediación de conflictos, competencia no difundida en médicos en formación: revisión

“…La razón neurofisiológica (42)(43)(44) del porqué de esta respuesta del cerebro emocional (sistema límbico) se encuentra en la velocidad de conducción nerviosa que se tiene en las conexiones en la interpretación de amenaza en el mundo exterior. En otras palabras, las conexiones del sistema límbico y los órganos de percepción de amenaza son mucho más rápidas y tardan en trasmitirse 125 milisegundos, mientras que la conexiones entre los sistemas sensoriales y la neocorteza tienen una conducción más lenta y tardan 450 milisegundos, es decir, es 3,6 veces más lento en comparación con la conexión de los órganos de los sentidos y el sistema emocional (45)(46)(47)(48) .…”