Mutual gaze with a robot affects human neural activity and delays decision-making processes

Belkaid, Marwen; Kompatsiari, Kyveli; Tommaso, Davide De; Zablith, Ingrid; Wykowska, Agnieszka

doi:10.1126/scirobotics.abc5044

Cited by 30 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(99 reference statements)

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“…Instead, our findings support the idea that the effect related to (in)congruency of social cues and social feedback was driven by the expectations of consistency between the cue and the feedback communicated by the robot. The violation of such expectation may have led to engagement of cognitive processes related to reasoning about the robot's actions and intentions, or to a higher effort needed to suppress the cued response it has become evident that it is in contradiction with the feedback, most of the time (see similar results by Belkaid et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

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Differences in social expectations about robot signals and human signals

Parenti¹,

Belkaid²,

Wykowska³

2023

Preprint

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Decision-making processes are involved in a large portion of humans’ everyday life and often occur in social situations. Although social decision-making has received increasing interest in literature, the influence of communicative signals, like social cues and feedback, on social decision-making is still poorly understood. In particular, the issue of whether social signals exhibited by non-human agents influence decision making has not yet been addressed. This question is of great importance today, in the new era in which artificial agents, such as robots or avatars start interacting with humans on a daily basis. This study aimed to examine whether robot non-verbal communicative behavior has an effect on human decision-making and can be perceived as a social signal. To this end, we implemented a 2-alternative-choice task with a between-subjects design where a robot acted as a game partner. We manipulated robot’s cues before participant’s decision and robot’s feedback after the decision. We found that manipulating robot signals affected participants’ performance. In particular, participants were slower in the condition where cues were mostly invalid and the robot reacted positively to wins. We show that this effect could not be attributed to attentional mechanisms, feedback expectation, or cognitive control. Instead, our results suggest that the effect is rather due to the violation of expectations about the incongruence between social signals. Our findings also indicate differences in these social expectations when they are about robot signals compared to human signals.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…Some studies specifically focused on replicating the gaze cueing paradigm using an embodied robot (Kompatsiari et al, 2019(Kompatsiari et al, , 2021. Moreover, eye contact with a robot prior to decisionmaking has been shown to delay decisions, affect neural activity and influence strategies in a competitive game (Belkaid et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in social expectations about robot signals and human signals

Parenti¹,

Belkaid²,

Wykowska³

2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As a result, the distracting effect of gaze cues was prolonged in time even when the stimulus onset asynchrony was equal to 1s ( Kompatsiari et al, 2021b ). Using a decision-making task Belkaid et al, ( 2021 ) showed that mutual gaze delayed reaction times by increasing the decision threshold. Also, iCub’s mutual gaze was associated with higher alpha synchronization in the EEG signal, indicating that during mutual gaze with the robot, suppression mechanisms were activated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robot’s Social Gaze Affects Conflict Resolution but not Conflict Adaptations

Ciardo

Wykowska

2022

Journal of Cognition

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Robots are a new category of social agents that, thanks to their embodiment, can be used to train and support cognitive skills such as cognitive control. Several studies showed that cognitive control mechanisms are sensitive to affective states induced by humor, mood, and symbolic feedback such as monetary rewards. In the present study, we investigated whether the social gaze of a humanoid robot can affect cognitive control mechanisms. To this end, in two experiments, we evaluated both the conflict resolution and trial-by-trial adaptations during an auditory Simon task, as a function of the type of feedback participants received in the previous trial from the iCub robot, namely, mutual or avoiding gaze behaviour. Across three experiments, we compared the effect of mutual, avoiding (Exp1 and Exp2), and neutral (Exp3) gaze feedback between screen-based (Exp1) and physically embodied setups (Exp2 and Exp3). Results showed that iCub's social gaze feedback modulated conflict resolution, but not conflict adaptations. Specifically, the Simon effect was increased following mutual gaze feedback from iCub. Moreover, the modulatory effect was observed for the embodied setup in which the robot could engage or avoid eye contact in real-time (Exp2) but not for the screen-based setting (Exp1). Our findings showed for the first time that social feedback in Human-Robot Interaction, such as social gaze, can be used to modulate cognitive control. The results highlight the advantage of using robots to evaluate and train complex cognitive skills in both healthy and clinical populations.

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“…As a result, the distracting effect of gaze cues was prolonged in time even when the stimulus onset asynchrony was equal to 1s (Kompatsiari et al, 2021b). Using a decision-making task Belkaid et al, (2021) showed that mutual gaze Robot's social gaze affects conflict resolution 21 delayed reaction times by increasing the decision threshold. Also, iCub's mutual gaze was associated with higher alpha synchronization in the EEG signal, indicating that during mutual gaze with the robot, suppression mechanisms were activated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robot’s social gaze affects conflict resolution but not conflict adaptations

Ciardo¹,

Wykowska²

2021

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Robots are a new category of social agents that, thanks to their embodiment, can be used to train and support cognitive skills such as cognitive control. Several studies showed that cognitive control mechanisms are sensitive to affective states induced by humor, mood, and symbolic feedback such as monetary rewards. In the present study, we investigated whether the social gaze of a humanoid robot can affect cognitive control mechanisms. To this end, in two experiments, we evaluated both the conflict resolution and trial-by-trial adaptations during an auditory Simon task, as a function of the type of feedback participants received in the previous trial from the iCub robot, namely, mutual or avoiding gaze behaviour. Across three experiments, we compared the effect of mutual, avoiding (Exp1 and Exp2), and neutral (Exp3) gaze feedback between screen-based (Exp1) and physically embodied setups (Exp2 and Exp3). Results showed that iCub’s social gaze feedback modulated conflict resolution, but not conflict adaptations. Specifically, the Simon effect was increased following mutual gaze feedback from iCub. Moreover, the modulatory effect was observed for the embodied setup in which the robot could engage or avoid eye contact in real-time (Exp2) but not for the screen-based setting (Exp1). Our findings showed for the first time that social feedback in Human-Robot Interaction, such as social gaze, can be used to modulate cognitive control. The results highlight the advantage of using robots to evaluate and train complex cognitive skills in both healthy and clinical populations.

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Mutual gaze with a robot affects human neural activity and delays decision-making processes

Abstract: Task-irrelevant robot gaze evokes neural suppression, delays decisions, and alters social decision-making strategies.

Cited by 30 publications

References 58 publications

Differences in social expectations about robot signals and human signals

Differences in social expectations about robot signals and human signals

Robot’s Social Gaze Affects Conflict Resolution but not Conflict Adaptations

Robot’s social gaze affects conflict resolution but not conflict adaptations

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