Muneeb Imtiaz Ahmad

HCI down under: reflecting on a decade of the OzCHI conference

In this study we present a scientometric analysis of the Australian Conference on Human–Computer Interaction (OzCHI) proceedings over the period of a decade (2006–2015). Conference proceedings were manually extracted from the ACM Digital Library and analysed. We observed OzCHI to be a popular conference attracting both submissions and citations. A group of leading researchers dominated the publication count followed by a long list of mid career academics. We observed the themes of Design, Health and Well-being and Education to be growing in importance. We also observed that full papers were cited significantly more than short papers. We conclude with a reflection on our methodology and a proposal of recommendations for the HCI/OzCHI community in Australia.

Understanding Behaviours and Roles for Social and Adaptive Robots In Education: Teacher's Perspective

In order to establish a long-term relationship between a robot and a child, robots need to learn from the environment, adapt to specific user needs and display behaviours and roles accordingly. Literature shows that certain robot behaviours could negatively impact childs learning and performance. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to not only understand teachers opinion on the existing effective social behaviours and roles but also to understand novel behaviours that can positively influence children performance in a language learning setting. In this paper, we present our results based on interviews conducted with 8 language teachers to get their opinion on how a robot can efficiently perform behaviour adaptation to influence learning and achieve long-term engagement. We also present results on future directions extracted from the interviews with teachers.

Adaptive Social Robot for Sustaining Social Engagement during Long-Term Children–Robot Interaction

ABSTRACT One of the known challenges in Children–Robot Interaction (cHRI) is to sustain children’s engagement during long-term interactions with robots. Researchers have hypothesized that robots that can adapt to children’s affective states and can also learn from the environment can result in sustaining engagement during cHRI. Recently, researchers have conducted a range of studies where robots portray different social capabilities and have shown that it has positively influenced children’s engagement. However, despite an immense body of research on implementation of different adaptive social robots, a pivotal question remains unanswered: Which adaptations portrayed by a robot can result in maintaining long-term social engagement during cHRI? In other words, what are the appropriate and effective adaptations portrayed by a robot that will sustain social engagement for an extended number of interactions? In this article, we report on a study conducted with three groups of children who played a snakes and ladders game with the NAO robot to address the aforementioned question. The NAO performed 1) game-based adaptations, 2) emotion-based adaptations, and 3) memory-based adaptation. Our results showed that emotion-based adaptations were found out to be most effective, followed by memory-based adaptations. Game adaptation didn’t result in sustaining long-term social engagement.

Using Adaptive Mobile Agents in Games Based Scenarios to Facilitate Foreign Language Word Learning

In this paper, we will be introducing, advocating and emphasising the role of an adaptive mobile agent in a game based scenario for supporting foreign language vocabulary learning. We will also be discussing our motivation to design a game for foreign language word learning. We will then be presenting an idea of a possible game design and also discuss the role of an adaptive agent in this game.

Effect of Different Adaptations by a Robot on Children's Long-term Engagement: An Exploratory Study

One of the known challenges in Children Robot Interaction (cHRI) is to sustain childrens engagement for long-term interactions with robots. Researchers have hypothesised that robots that can adapt to childrens affective states, and can also learn from the environment, resulting in sustained engagement during cHRI. In this paper, we report on a study conducted with three groups of children who played a snakes and ladders game with the NAO robot. The NAO performed 1) Game based adaptations, 2) Emotion based adaptations and 3) Memory based adaptation. The purpose of this study was to find which particular condition resulted in maintaining engagement over a certain period of time. Our results show that adaptations performed by the robot, in general, were able to maintain long-term engagement. However, we did not find any significant effect of one adaptation over another on engagement, social presence and perceived support.

Design and evaluation of mobile learning applications for autistic children in Pakistan

In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of culturally specific mobile learning applications, designed as a tool to encourage social interaction in autistic children. These applications were designed for Pakistani children keep their cultural context in mind. We performed longitudinal evaluation (around eight weeks) of these applications at an autistic school in Pakistan. Our initial results, based on pre and post evaluation questionnaires and video analysis of social interactions, showed that the applications had a positive effect on the development of socio-emotional skills of children and were appreciated not only by children but also by the teachers.

Towards the design of an electronic health book for Sri Lankan children: A survey-based approach

In this paper we present a survey based approach towards the design of a mobile application meant to function as an electronic version of a child health book for use in Sri Lanka. Through the use of persuasive technology the application aims to inculcate positive behavioural changes in Sri Lankan parents in order to facilitate the well being of their children. We report on a survey conducted with parents living in urban areas in Colombo which led to the formulation of design guidelines for the application. The application was then evaluated with a set of parents. Results from both the survey and application show that parents held great importance to the privacy and security of their childs data. Some aspects of the paper based health book were deemed to be at times unclear; such as the developmental checks. In general parents were positive about the prospects of an electronic health book. We conclude our paper with future directions of the digital health book.

Children views' on social robot's adaptations in education

In this paper, we present our results of a long-term study conducted at a school with 12 children, in which they played snakes and ladders game with a NAO robot for 3-times across 10 days. The goal of the study was to understand childrens view on various adaptation behaviours such as emotion, memory, personality for a social robot in education for maintaining and creating long-term engagement and acceptance. On the last day, we divided the children into 4 different groups to perform a focus group activity with them. Our results show that children reacted positively towards the use of robots in education. Children also emphasised that the robot should adapt based on previous memory, their emotions, and personality in real-time.

An assessment into the characteristics of award winning papers at CHI

The overall readability of CHI publications is not known. In addition, little is understood about what lexical or demographic characteristics are unique to award winning papers at CHI and if they are significantly different from non award winning papers. We therefore carry out an exploration and assessment into the readability metrics as well as a meta analysis of 382 full papers and 54 notes from the 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 editions at CHI. Our results illustrate that notes did not have any significant trends whatsoever. On the other hand, award winning full papers were shown to have lower readability as compared to non award winning full papers. The type of research contribution played an important role; such that award winning full papers were significantly more likely to have a theoretical contribution as compared to non award winning full papers and full papers that presented an artifact as their contribution were more readable than other full papers. Our demographic analysis of authors indicated that the experience of authors nor their region of affiliation were not associated with the likelihood of their full paper being awarded. The experience of authors did not effect the overall readability of full papers however the region of affiliation did have a significant influence on the overall readability of full papers. In conclusion, we speculate on our obtained results through linkages with prior work in readability analysis.

Towards the Applicability of NAO Robot for Children with Autism in Pakistan

In this paper, we present a HRI study that reports on the potential of NAO as a socially assistive robot in Pakistan. Our findings generated through interviewing 2 parents and 5 teachers on the plausibility of using NAO robot as an interaction partner show that both groups welcomed the use of NAO at schools. They, however, were sceptical due to missing NAO’s facial expressions and certain body parts such as nose and lips. They also emphasised the importance of creating natural text to speech interface for the Urdu Language. Our findings taken from 7 autistic children to measure their level of social interaction during HRI revealed that children positively engaged with the NAO robot and showed a significant number of both verbal and non-verbal behaviours.