Interactions With an Empathetic Agent: Regulating Emotions and Improving Engagement in Autism

Javed, Hifza; Park, Chung Hyuk

doi:10.1109/mra.2019.2904638

Cited by 19 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The animation for each emotion was accompanied with a dedicated background color, as well as complementary changes in the tilt angle of the iPod, and circular or back-and-forth movements of the treads upon which it was mounted in order to further facilitate emotional expression [40] [44]. It must be pointed out here that the penguin character and the emotion animations were custom-designed and developed by our team as a part of our previous work [41]. Mini was also programmed for the same emotional expressions, some of which are shown in Fig.…”

Section: Robotic Platformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Robotic Framework to Facilitate Sensory Experiences for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Javed

Burns

Jeon

et al. 2019

J. Hum.-Robot Interact.

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The diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children is commonly accompanied by a diagnosis of sensory processing disorders as well. Abnormalities are usually reported in multiple sensory processing domains, showing a higher prevalence of unusual responses, particularly to tactile, auditory and visual stimuli. This paper discusses a novel robot-based framework designed to target sensory difficulties faced by children with ASD in a controlled setting. The setup consists of a number of sensory stations, together with robotic agents that navigate the stations and interact with the stimuli as they are presented. These stimuli are designed to resemble real world scenarios that form a common part of one's everyday experiences. Given the strong interest of children with ASD in technology in general and robots in particular, we attempt to utilize our robotic platform to demonstrate socially acceptable responses to the stimuli in an interactive, pedagogical setting that encourages the child's social, motor and vocal skills, while providing a diverse sensory experience. A preliminary user study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed framework, with a total of 18 participants (5 with ASD and 13 typically developing) between the ages of 4 and 12 years. We describe our methods of data collection, coding of video data and the analysis of the results obtained from the study. We also discuss the limitations of the current work and detail our plans for the future work to improve the validity of the obtained results.

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Section: Robotic Platformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Robotic Framework to Facilitate Sensory Experiences for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Javed

Burns

Jeon

et al. 2019

J. Hum.-Robot Interact.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The emotion library of the iPod-based robot spanned 20 different emotion states. This was a part of our previous work [41], the goal of which was to develop emotionally expressive robotic agents. These emotions were represented along a valence-arousal scale, as determined by Russell's Circumplex model [42] shown in Figure 1.…”

Section: The Framework 31 Design Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The animation for each emotion was accompanied with a dedicated background color, as well as complementary changes in the tilt angle of the iPod, and circular or back-and-forth movements of the treads upon which it was mounted to further facilitate emotional expression [40,44]. It must be pointed out here that the penguin character and the emotion animations were custom designed and developed by our team as a part of our previous work [41]. Mini was also programmed for the same emotional expressions, some of which are shown in Figure 4.…”

Section: Robotic Platformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mini was controlled via Bluetooth through a custom-designed user interface on an Android tablet. Romo was operated through a server, which triggered a custom-designed user interface once a connection was established with the robot [41]. Based on the selected action, a routine that included both the animations and physical movements was then autonomously executed by Romo.…”

Section: Robotic Platformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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2019

ACM Trans. Hum.-Robot Interact.

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The diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children is commonly accompanied by a diagnosis of sensory processing disorders. Abnormalities are usually reported in multiple sensory processing domains, showing a higher prevalence of unusual responses, particularly to tactile, auditory, and visual stimuli. This article discusses a novel robot-based framework designed to target sensory difficulties faced by children with ASD in a controlled setting. The setup consists of a number of sensory stations, together with two different robotic agents that navigate the stations and interact with the stimuli. These stimuli are designed to resemble real-world scenarios that form a common part of one's everyday experiences. Given the strong interest of children with ASD in technology in general and robots in particular, we attempt to utilize our robotic platform to demonstrate socially acceptable responses to the stimuli in an interactive, pedagogical setting that encourages the child's social, motor, and vocal skills, while providing a diverse sensory experience. A preliminary user study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed framework, with a total of 18 participants (5 with ASD and 13 typically developing) between the ages of 4 and 12 years. We derive a measure of social engagement, based on which we evaluate the effectiveness of the robots and sensory stations to identify key design features that can improve social engagement in children. CCS Concepts: • Computer systems organization → Robotics; • Human-centered computing → Interaction design process and methods; User studies;

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“…El siguiente nivel asociado a la consciencia se asocia a la valoración social cognitivoafectivo, en el que convergen cuatro teorías: 1) Minsky (2006); 2) teoría de la mente (ToM), (Baron-Cohen et al, 1985;Bottema-Beutel et al, 2019;Frith & Baron-Cohen, 1987;Jones et al, 2018;O'Nions et al, 2014); 3) teoría de empatización-sistematización (E-S) ( Baron-Cohen, 2009Groen et al, 2015;Javed & Park, 2019), y 4) modelo OCC (Laureano-Cruces et al, 2013 y Mora-Torres (Mora-Torres, 2015;Mora-Torres et al, 2011.…”

Section: Módulo De Interacción Nivelunclassified

Comportamiento de niños con Trastorno del Espectro Autista (TEA) en el uso de sus funciones ejecutivas suscitadas a partir de interacciones cognitivas con un robot humanoide

Villavicencio¹,

Luz²

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Los niños con Trastorno del Espectro Autista (TEA) presentan primordialmente tres tipos de problemas: 1) patrones de comportamiento como actividades e intereses repetitivos y restringidos; 2) deterioro de la comunicación e interacción social, y 3) deterioro en la flexibilidad de pensamiento (DSM-5). La exploración diagnóstica ha estado mediada por aspectos empíricos, teóricos, metodológicos o epistemológicos. Analizados desde distintas áreas del conocimiento, a través de las cuales se han propuesto diversos tipos de intervenciones. Las explicaciones teóricas más importantes del comportamiento dentro del TEA han enfatizado la falta de interacción social de los niños con otras personas debido a: 1) un deficiente sistema de interpretación de las intenciones y del estado mental de otras personas; 2) la carencia de la optimización de sus funciones ejecutivas (FE) relacionadas con la capacidad para mantener una disposición adecuada durante la solución de problemas a largo plazo, y 3) deficiente adaptación social en relación con la falta de empatía, debido a una alta recurrencia de patrones detectados como las actividades e intereses restringidos y repetitivos. El objetivo que se cumple en la investigación es: describir, visualizar y analizar el comportamiento de niños con TEA mientras interactúan con un robot humanoide empleado como vehículo de interacción asistida para generar un modelo de interacción cognitiva. También ha sido importante evaluar su flexibilidad adaptativa a partir del empleo de sus FE asociadas a un nivel de consciencia. Se consideró la inclusión del robot humanoide debido a la alta aceptación que ha tenido entre los niños, incluyendo a los del espectro autista. A través del robot se desarrollaron tareas para ejercitar algunas de sus FE asociadas a los niveles de consciencia. Se empleó una metodología propia transdisciplinaria con el fin de: 1) explorar, 2) visualizar, y 3) analizar la conducta de los niños bajo condiciones experimentales, con el fin de establecer un modelo de interacción cognitivo. El modelo como resultado de la tesis se pone a prueba con niños con TEA y se sustenta en la alta capacidad de logro de las tareas e intereses que alcanzan los infantes durante las interacciones.

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Interactions With an Empathetic Agent: Regulating Emotions and Improving Engagement in Autism

Cited by 19 publications

References 10 publications

A Robotic Framework to Facilitate Sensory Experiences for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

A Robotic Framework to Facilitate Sensory Experiences for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Untitled

Comportamiento de niños con Trastorno del Espectro Autista (TEA) en el uso de sus funciones ejecutivas suscitadas a partir de interacciones cognitivas con un robot humanoide

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