Marta Díaz

Creation of an ergonomic guideline for supervisory control interface design

In tasks of human supervision in industrial control room they are applied generic disciplines as the software engineering and the physical ergonomics for the design of the computing interface and the design of the control room layout. From the point of view of the human computer interaction, to these disciplines it is necessary to add the usability engineering and the cognitive ergonomics since they contribute rules for the user centered design. The main goal of this work is the creation of a cognitive ergonomic guideline for supervisory control interface design in order to improve the efficiency of the human machine systems in industrial automation.

A field study with primary school children on perception of social presence and interactive behavior with a pet robot

This paper presents a study on (1) how children experience a pet robot, (2) how they play with it and (3) how childrens perceptions on and interaction with pet robots are interrelated. The study features different types of subjective and objective techniques to assess the degree of perceived social entity from self-reports (i.e. questionnaires) and observed behavior. Three short questionnaires and an ad hoc code scheme of 15 low-level micro-behaviors were developed. 28 scholars aged 8 to 12 were observed at school during a play period with a Pleo robot and asked to answer the questionnaires. We found that the different questionnaire based methods were in line each other. Therefore, anyone of them can be used to measure the experience of a social entity. Play analyses showed that the two most prevalent behaviors were clearly social: petting the robot and showing it objects to engage in interaction. Moreover, children spent on average less than one per cent of the session time treating the robot as an artifact. However, significant covariation between the experience of a social entity and observed behavior could not be established.

Successful Non-Surgical Deep Uterine Transfer of Porcine Morulae after 24 Hour Culture in a Chemically Defined Medium

Excellent fertility and prolificacy have been reported after non-surgical deep uterine transfers of fresh in vivo-derived porcine embryos. Unfortunately, when this technology is used with vitrified embryos, the reproductive performance of recipients is low. For this reason and because the embryos must be stored until they are transferred to the recipient farms, we evaluated the potential application of non-surgical deep uterine transfers with in vivo-derived morulae cultured for 24 h in liquid stage. In Experiment 1, two temperatures (25°C and 37°C) and two media (one fully defined and one semi-defined) were assessed. Morulae cultured in culture medium supplemented with bovine serum albumin and fetal calf serum at 38.5°C in 5% CO2 in air were used as controls. Irrespective of medium, the embryo viability after 24 h of culture was negatively affected (P<0.05) at 25°C but not at 37°C compared with the controls. Embryo development was delayed in all experimental groups compared with the control group (P<0.001). Most of the embryos (95.7%) cultured at 37°C achieved the full or expanded blastocyst stage, and unlike the controls, none of them hatched at the end of culture. In Experiment 2, 785 morulae were cultured in the defined medium at 37°C for 24 h, and the resulting blastocysts were transferred to the recipients (n = 24). Uncultured embryos collected at the blastocyst stage (n = 750) were directly transferred to the recipients and used as controls (n = 25). No differences in farrowing rates (91.7% and 92.0%) or litter sizes (9.0±0.6 and 9.4±0.8) were observed between the groups. This study demonstrated, for the first time, that high reproductive performance can be achieved after non-surgical deep uterine transfers with short-term cultured morulae in a defined medium, which opens new possibilities for the sanitary, safe national and international trade of porcine embryos and the commercial use of embryo transfer in pigs.

Building up child-robot relationship for therapeutic purposes: From initial attraction towards long-term social engagement

This work explores the dynamics of the emergence of the social bonds with robots. A field study with 49 sixth grade scholars (aged 11–12 years) and 4 different robots was carried out at an elementary school. A subsequent laboratory experiment with 4 of the participants was completed. For the first experience, at school childrens preferences, expectancies on functionality and communication, and interaction behavior were studied. Using the data collected in the laboratory, recognition, the selection of partner, and dyadic interaction were explored. Both at school and in the lab, data from videotaped direct observation, questionnaires and interviews were gathered. The results showed that different appearance and performance of robots elicit in children distinctive perceptions and interactive behavior, and affect social processes, such as role attribution and attachment. This work presents a preliminary field study to explore the introduction of robot-based programs to improve the quality of life of hospitalized children1

Comparing two LEGO Robotics-based interventions for social skills training with children with ASD

This paper presents an analysis of two comparable studies with LEGO Robotics-based activities in a social skills training program for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). One study has been carried out with a group of 16 children in the Unit of Pediatrics Psychology and Psychiatry in HSJD in Barcelona, Spain and the other with a group of 17 children at the Center for Education and Engineering Outreach (Tufts U.) in Boston, USA. The aim of this comparison is discuss lessons learnt and develop empirical based guidelines for intervention design.

Beyond cognition and affect: sensing the unconscious

In the past decade, research on human–computer interaction has embraced psychophysiological user interfaces that enhance awareness of computers about conscious cognitive and affective states of users and increase their adaptive capabilities. Still, human experience is not limited to the levels of cognition and affect but extends further into the realm of universal instincts and innate behaviours that form the collective unconscious. Patterns of instinctual traits shape archetypes that represent images of the unconscious. This study investigated whether seven various archetypal experiences of users lead to recognisable patterns of physiological responses. More specifically, the potential of predicting the archetypal experiences by a computer from physiological data collected with wearable sensors was evaluated. The subjects were stimulated to feel the archetypal experiences and conscious emotions by means of film clips. The physiological data included measurements of cardiovascular and electrodermal activities. Statistical analysis indicated a significant relationship between the archetypes portrayed in the videos and the physiological responses. Data mining methods enabled us to create between-subject prediction models that were capable of classifying four archetypes with an accuracy of up to 57.1%. Further analysis suggested that classification performance could be improved up to 70.3% in the case of seven archetypes by using within-subject models.

Traces of unconscious mental processes in introspective reports and physiological responses.

Unconscious mental processes have recently started gaining attention in a number of scientific disciplines. One of the theoretical frameworks for describing unconscious processes was introduced by Jung as a part of his model of the psyche. This framework uses the concept of archetypes that represent prototypical experiences associated with objects, people, and situations. Although the validity of Jungian model remains an open question, this framework is convenient from the practical point of view. Moreover, archetypes found numerous applications in the areas of psychology and marketing. Therefore, observation of both conscious and unconscious traces related to archetypal experiences seems to be an interesting research endeavor. In a study with 36 subjects, we examined the effects of experiencing conglomerations of unconscious emotions associated with various archetypes on the participants’ introspective reports and patterns of physiological activations. Our hypothesis for this experiment was that physiological data may predict archetypes more precisely than introspective reports due to the implicit nature of archetypal experiences. Introspective reports were collected using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) technique. Physiological measures included cardiovascular, electrodermal, respiratory responses and skin temperature of the subjects. The subjects were stimulated to feel four archetypal experiences and four explicit emotions by means of film clips. The data related to the explicit emotions served as a reference in analysis of archetypal experiences. Our findings indicated that while prediction models trained on the collected physiological data could recognize the archetypal experiences with accuracy of 55 percent, similar models built based on the SAM data demonstrated performance of only 33 percent. Statistical tests enabled us to confirm that physiological observations are better suited for observation of implicit psychological constructs like archetypes than introspective reports.

Evaluación de la Usabilidad para la Tarea de Supervisión Humana en Sala de Control Industrial

En tareas de supervision humana de sala de control industrial se aplican de forma generica disciplinas como la seguridad y la ergonomia fisica para el diseno de la sala de control. Desde el punto de vista de la interaccion persona-ordenador, a estas disciplinas hay que anadir la ingenieria de la usabilidad y la ergonomia cognitiva ya que aportan pautas para el diseno centrado en el usuario. Este articulo presenta una guia ergonomica de diseno para la mejora de la calidad de una interfaz de supervision industrial, y propone la evaluacion de la usabilidad para medir la eficiencia del operario de sala de control industrial. El articulo muestra la aplicacion de la guia sobre el simulador de alcance total del Centro de Tecnologia Azucarera, para contribuir al programa de formacion de operarios en aspectos de mejoras de rendimiento del sistema persona-ordenador en procesos productivos complejos

See Where I am Looking at: Perceiving Gaze Cues With a NAO Robot

Gaze is an important nonverbal cue in human - human communication, for example, in communicating direction of attention. Therefore, presumably being able to understand and provide gaze cues is an important aspect in robots interactive behavior. While there is considerable progress, as regards the design of social gaze cues for robots, there is little that has been done to examine the ability of humans to read and accept help signals from a robots gaze. In this study, we examine how people perceive gaze cues and head angles directed towards different target positions on a table when human and NAO robot are sitting against each other as in board game scenarios. From the results, we show that when the head pitch angle is higher (24±2) and the depth is less, approximately 20 cm from the robot, participants detected the positions with good accuracy. Unexpectedly, the locations on the left of the robot were detected with lower accuracy. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of this research for design of interaction settings between human and a robot that is intended for social and educational support.

Evaluation of an accessible home control and telecare system

The article presents part of the research carried out within a project aimed at procuring interaction of people with disabilities and elderly with their environment through the use of information and communication technologies. We present methodological aspects related to participation models, user experience, technology acceptance and peer training. Technology was designed to test the effectiveness of systems and interfaces developed. Evaluation was conducted in an automation environment with older people as users.