Jessica Lindblom

Social Situatedness of Natural and Artificial Intelligence: Vygotsky and Beyond ¤

The concept of “social situatedness,” that is, the idea that the development of individual intelligence requires a social (and cultural) embedding, has recently received much attention in cognitive science and artificial intelligence research, in particular work on social or epigenetic robotics. The work of Lev Vygotsky, who put forward this view as early as the 1920s, has influenced the discussion to some degree but still remains far from well known. This article therefore is aimed at giving an overview of his cognitive development theory and a discussion of its relation to more recent work in primatology and socially situated artificial intelligence, in particular humanoid robotics.

The social body in motion: cognitive development in infants and androids

During the past two decades, embodiment has become an important concept in many areas of cognitive science, but so far there is no common understanding of what constitutes embodied cognition and what kind of body an artificial humanlike cognizer would require. Work in embodied artificial intelligence and robotics has addressed, to some degree, what kind of bodily implementation is necessary for embodied cognition, but crucial factors such as the role of social interaction and the ‘body-in-motion’ have still not received much attention. We argue that, in the human child, the interplay of social scaffolding and self-induced locomotion is fundamental to the development of joint attention and a ‘self’. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of the social dynamics of bodily experience for android science. We argue that keeping scientific and engineering perspectives apart, but also understanding their relation, is important for clarifying the objectives of android science. Parts of this paper have appeared in similar form in Lindblom and Ziemke (2005a, b) and Ziemke and Lindblom (2006).

Promoting sustainable intensification in precision agriculture: review of decision support systems development and strategies

Precision agriculture provides important issues toward a more sustainable agriculture. Many farmers have the necessary technology to operate site-specifically, but they do not use it in practice, and thus available information and communications technology (ICT) systems are not used to their full potential. This paper addresses how to reduce the so-called “problem of implementation”, based on the knowledge that participatory approaches during the design and development process is one of the most important factors to frame technology adoption. The development of sustainable ICT systems through theories and methodologies from the fields of human computer interaction and user-centered design (UCD) is presented and an ongoing Swedish project for development of an agricultural decision support system (AgriDSS) for nitrogen fertilization is used as an example to frame the issue. The overreaching aim is to develop AgriDSSs that are sustainable in design as well as through design by stressing the importance of participatory approaches for the successful development of AgriDSSs. The Swedish project has the intention to apply a UCD approach, and some pitfalls on starting to use this way of working is identified as well as some suggestions on how to reduce them through co-learning processes. Despite the challenges presented in this paper, ICT can contribute significantly to long-term sustainable development. Thus, several competences and scientific disciplines need to act in concert to help develop a sustainable development of agriculture via a transdisciplinary approach that can make an impact on society at many levels.

User Experience in Social Human-Robot Interaction

Socially interactive robots are expected to have an increasing importance in human society. For social robots to provide long-term added value to peoples lives, it is of major importance to stress the need for positive user experience UX of such robots. The human-centered view emphasizes various aspects that emerge in the interaction between humans and robots. However, a positive UX does not appear by itself but has to be designed for and evaluated systematically. In this paper, the focus is on the role and relevance of UX in human-robot interaction HRI and four trends concerning the role and relevance of UX related to socially interactive robots are identified, and three challenges related to its evaluation are also presented. It is argued that current research efforts and directions are not sufficient in HRI research, and that future research needs to further address interdisciplinary research in order to achieve long-term success of socially interactive robots.

Comparing methods for workplace studies: a theoretical and empirical analysis

A comparative theoretical and empirical analysis of three methods for workplace studies is being conducted in this article. The aim of the study was to explore what level of theoretical depth and methodological structure is appropriate when conducting methods for workplace studies to inform design of complex socio-technical systems. As workplace studies in human–computer interaction (HCI) are a research field that has expanded in an extensive way in the past years, currently there are a wide range of theoretical approaches and methods to select from. The variety of approaches and methods makes it problematic to do relevant methodological choices both in research and system design. While there have been several studies that assess the different approaches to workplace studies, there seem to be a lack of studies that explore the theoretical and methodological differences between more structured methods within the research field. This article serves as a starting point to explore the many methods for workplace studies in HCI and contributes to the field with increased knowledge regarding the theoretical and methodological differences in workplace studies. When using the two criteria descriptive power and application power to assess Contextual Design, Determining Information Flow Breakdown, and Capturing Semi-Automated Decision-Making, lessons are learned about in which ways the methods are acceptable and useful when the purpose is to inform system design.

Manufacturing in the wild – viewing human-based assembly through the lens of distributed cognition

Abstract The interdisciplinary field of cognitive science has been and is becoming increasingly central within human factors and ergonomics (HF&E) and, since at the same time, there has long been a call for a more systems perspective in the area with a somewhat wider unit of analysis. This paper argues that the theoretical framework of distributed cognition would greatly benefit the application of HF&E to manufacturing and would offer a more holistic understanding of the interactions between different entities within a greater context, including the social, cultural and materialistic. We aim to characterize and analyse manufacturing as a complex socio-technical system from a distributed cognition perspective; focusing on the use, mediation and integration of different forms of representations, tools and artefacts in this domain. We present illustrative examples from authentic manual assembly, showing the cognitively distributed nature of the work, ranging from scaffolding strategies of the individual worker to the emergent properties of a whole assembly line. The paper further proposes and provides benefits of using a distributed cognition framework as a novel approach in the toolbox for the HF&E discipline, where it may have been found before, but the application to manufacturing has been absent.

Interruptions in the wild: portraying the handling of interruptions in manufacturing from a distributed cognition lens

This paper presents a study examining interruptions in the wild by portraying the handling of interruptions in manufacturing from a distributed cognition lens. By studying how interruptions occur and are handled in the daily activities of a work team at a large foundry for casting heavy diesel engines, we highlight situations when the propagation, transformation, and representation of information are not supported by prescribed work processes and propose recommendations for how this can be amended. The study was conducted by several visits to the aforementioned factory with cognitive ethnography as the basis for the data collection. The focus was on identifying interruptions and analysing these through a distributed cognition framework as an initial step towards studying interruptions in a manufacturing environment. The key findings include the identification of three, previously undefined, types of interruptions and the conclusion that interruptions do indeed affect the distributed workload of the socio-technical system and thus the overall production performance at the casting line.

Coordinating the interruption of assembly workers in manufacturing

This paper examines how interruptions from information and communications technology systems affect errors and the time to complete tasks for assembly workers. Interruptions have previously been examined in laboratory experiments and office environments, but not much work has been performed in other authentic environments. This paper contains the results of an experiment that was performed in a simulated manufacturing assembly environment, which tested the effects of interruptions on a manual assembly task. The experiment used existing interruption coordination methods as a basis, and the results showed a difference in the effect of interruptions and interruption coordination between cognitively complex laboratory tasks and manual assembly tasks in an authentic environment. Most notably, the negative effects of interruptions delivered without consideration were smaller in this experiment. Based on these findings, recommendations were developed for designing interruption systems for minimizing the costs (errors and time) imposed by interruptions during assembly tasks in manufacturing.

Current Challenges for UX Evaluation of Human-Robot Interaction

The development of socially interactive robots is expected to have an increasing importance in everyday life for a growing number of people. For social robots to provide long-term added value to people’s lives, it is of major importance to stress the need for developing a positive user experience (UX). The human-centered view emphasizes various aspects including acceptance, usability, and credibility, as they emerge in the interaction between humans and robots. In current human-robot interaction (HRI) research, UX is reckoned to be important, but is often taken for granted. However, a positive user experience does not appear by itself but has to be systematically designed and evaluated. In this paper, we focus on the role and relevance of UX in HRI and present three challenges related to the evaluation of UX in interaction with robots, addressing the need for interdisciplinary research in order to achieve long-term success of socially interactive robots.

Meaning-making as a socially distributed and embodied practice

This chapter briefly contrasts the ongoing debate concerning the nature and kinds of meaning-making within cognitive science and related disciplines. Based on the shortcomings of traditional approaches of meaning-making activity it integrates the theoretical framework of Distributed Cognition (DC) with more recent, embodied approaches of social interaction and cognition. The focus is mostly on “radically” embodiment theories, but also clarifies different notions of embodiment and its role in cognition and social interaction. Integrating a broad range of theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence from mainly social neuroscience, phenomenology, embodied linguistics and gesture studies, four fundamental functions of the body in social interaction are identified. (1) The body as a social resonance mechanism, (2) the body as a means and end in communication and social interaction, (3) embodied action and gesture as a helping hand in shaping, expressing and sharing thoughts, and (4) the body as a representational device. The theoretical discussions are illustrated with an example from a case study of embodied social interaction “in the wild”, with a focus on the importance of cross-modal interaction in the process of meaning-making activity. The DC perspective functions as an appropriate approach of illustrating how bodily interaction and meaning is enacted when embodied agents are co-operatively engaged in meaning-making activity. It is concluded that the body is of crucial importance in understanding social interaction and cognition in general, and in particular the relational and distributed nature of meaning-making activity in joint actions.