Shuichi Nishio

Hugvie: Communication Device for Encouraging Good Relationship through theAct of Hugging

In this paper, we introduce a communication device which encourages users to establish a good relationship with others. We designed the device so that it allows users to virtually hug the person in the remote site through the medium. In this paper, we report that when a participant talks to his communication partner during their rest encounter while hugging the communication medium, he mistakenly feels as if they are establishing a good relationship and that he is being loved rather than just being liked. From this result, we discuss Active Co-Presence, a new method to enhance co-presence of people in remote through active behavior

Ubiquitous Network Robot Platform for Realizing Integrated Robotic Applications

This paper introduces a common infrastructure for robotic applications to support our daily life: the Ubiquitous Network Robot Platform (UNR-PF). UNR-PF bridges the gaps among service application providers, customers and robotic devices such as robots, sensors and smartphones. For application programmers, UNR-PF provides a common API so that programmers can realize applications in a way independent to the actual variation in devices. UNR-PF also provides applications to span across multiple areas so that customers can receive seamless support in different scenes based on their abilities. Here, we first describe the motivation as well as requirements for UNR-PF based on past field studies. Based on these requirements, several real-world case studies has been performed which showed the effectiveness of the proposed concept of UNR-PF for continuously supporting our daily activities across multiple areas. We describe recent activities toward standardizing the key elements of UNR-PF and discuss future works.

At the Café—from an Object to a Subject

What are the characteristics that make an object appear to be a social entity? Is sociality limited to human beings? This article addresses the borders of sociality and the animation characteristics with which a physical object (here, an android robot) needs to be endowed so that it appears to be a living being. The transition of sociality is attributed during interactive encounters. We introduce the implications of an ethnomethodological analysis to show the characteristics of the transitions in the social attribution of an android robot, which is treated and perceived as gradually shifting from an object to a social entity. These characteristics should (a) fill the gap in current anthropological and sociological research, addressing the limits and characteristics of social entities and (b) contribute to the discussion of the specific characteristics of human–android interaction as compared to human–human interaction.

Effect of Perspective Change on Body Ownership Transfer

We previously investigated body ownership transfer to a teleoperated android body caused by motion synchronization between the robot and its operator. Although visual feedback is the only information provided from the robot side, as a result of body ownership transfer, some operators feel as if they are touched when the robot’s body is touched. This illusion can help operators transfer their presence to the robotic body during teleoperation. By enhancing this phenomenon, we can improve the communication interface and the quality of the interaction between the operator and interlocutor. In this study, we examined the effect of a change in the operator’s perspective on the body ownership transfer during teleoperation. According to the results of past studies on the rubber hand illusion (RHI), we hypothesized that a perspective change would suppress the body owner transfer. Our results, however, showed that under any perspective condition, the participants felt the body ownership transfer. This shows that its generation process differs for teleoperated androids and the RHI.

Exploring Minimal Requirement for Body Ownership Transfer by Brain–Computer Interface

Operators of a pair of robotic hands report ownership of those hands when they hold an image in their mind of a grasp motion and watch the robot perform it. We present a novel body ownership illusion that is induced by merely watching and controlling a robot’s motions through a brain–machine interface. In past studies, body ownership illusions were induced by the correlation of sensory inputs, such as vision, touch, and proprioception. However, in the presented illusion none of these sensations was integrated, except vision. Our results show that the interaction between the motor commands and visual feedback of an intended motion is sufficient to evoke the illusion that non-body limbs are incorporated into a person’s own body. In particular, this work discusses the role of proprioceptive information in the mechanism of agency-driven illusions. We believe that our findings can contribute to the improvement of tele-presence systems in which operators perceive tele-operated robots as themselves.

Regulating Emotion with Body Ownership Transfer

In this study, we experimentally examined whether changes in the facial expressions of teleoperated androids can affect and regulate their operators’ emotion, based on the facial feedback theory of emotion and the phenomenon of body ownership transfer to the robot. Twenty-six Japanese participants conversed with an experimenter through a robot in a situation where the participants were induced to feel anger, and during the conversation, the android’s facial expression was changed according to a pre-programmed scheme. The results showed that facial feedback from the android did occur. Moreover, a comparison of the results of two groups of participants, one of which operated the robot and the second did not, showed that this facial feedback from the android robot occurred only when the participants operated the robot, and that when an operator could effectively operate the robot, his/her emotional states were more affected by the facial expression change of the robot.

Adjusting Brain Activity with Body Ownership Transfer

Feedback design is an important issue in motor imagery brain–computer interface (BCI) systems. However, extant research has not reported on the manner in which feedback presentation optimizes coadaptation between a human brain and motor imagery BCI systems. This study assesses the effect of realistic visual feedback on user BCI-performance and motor imagery skills. A previous study developed a teleoperation system for a pair of humanlike robotic hands and showed that the BCI control of the hands in conjunction with first-person perspective visual feedback of movements arouses a sense of embodiment in the operators. In the first stage of this study, the results indicated that the intensity of the ownership illusion was associated with feedback presentation and subject performance during BCI motion control. The second stage investigated the effect of positive and negative feedback bias on BCI-performance of subjects and motor imagery skills. The subject-specific classifier that was set up at the beginning of the experiment did not detect any significant changes in the online performance of subjects, and the evaluation of brain activity patterns revealed that the subject’s self-regulation of motor imagery features improved due to a positive feedback bias and the potential occurrence of ownership illusion. The findings suggest that the manipulation of feedback can generally play an important role with respect to training protocols for BCIs in the optimization of the subject’s motor imagery skills.

Body Ownership Transfer by Social Interaction

Body ownership transfer (BOT) comprises the illusion that we feel external objects as parts of our own body, which occurs when teleoperating android robots. In past studies, we investigated the conditions under which this illusion occurs. However, these studies were conducted using only simple operation tasks, such as moving only the robot’s hand. Does this illusion occur during more complex tasks, such as conducting a conversation? What kind of conversation setting is required to invoke this illusion? In this study, we examined the manner in which factors in social interaction affect the occurrence of BOT. Participants conversed using the teleoperated robot under different conditions and teleoperation settings. The results revealed that BOT does occur during the task of conducting a conversation, and that the conversation partner’s presence and appropriate responses are necessary to enhance BOT.

Body Ownership Transfer to a Teleoperated Android

Teleoperators of android robots occasionally feel as if the robotic bodies are extensions of their own bodies. When others touch the android that they are teleoperating, even without tactile feedback, some operators feel as if they themselves have been touched. In the past, a similar phenomenon named the “Rubber Hand Illusion” was studied because it reflects the three-way interaction between vision, touch, and proprioception. In this study, we examined whether a similar three-way interaction occurs when the tactile sensation is replaced with android robot teleoperation. The results show that when the operator and the android motions are synchronized, operators feel as if their sense of body ownership is transferred to the android robot.

Hierarchical Anomality Detection Based on Situation

In this paper, we propose a novel anomality detection method based on external situational information and hierarchical analysis of behaviors. Past studies model normal behaviors to detect anomality as outliers. However, normal behaviors tend to differ by situations. Our method combines a set of simple classifiers with pedestrian trajectories as inputs. As mere path information is not sufficient for detecting anomality, trajectories are first decomposed into hierarchical features of different abstract levels and then applied to appropriate classifiers corresponding to the situation it belongs to. Effects of the methods are tested using real environment data.