@article {2013, title = {Interpretation of Emotional Body Language Displayed by a Humanoid Robot: A Case Study with Children}, journal = {International Journal of Social Robotics}, volume = {5}, year = {2013}, note = {Download}, pages = {325{\textendash}334}, abstract = {The work reported in this paper focuses on giving humanoid robots the capacity to express emotions with their body. Previous results show that adults are able to interpret different key poses displayed by a humanoid robot and also that changing the head position affects the expressiveness of the key poses in a consistent way. Moving the head down leads to decreased arousal (the level of energy) and valence (positive or negative emotion) whereas moving the head up produces an increase along these dimensions. Hence, changing the head position during an interaction should send intuitive signals. The study reported in this paper tested children{\textquoteright}s ability to recognize the emotional body language displayed by a humanoid robot. The results suggest that body postures and head position can be used to convey emotions during child-robot interaction.}, keywords = {emotion, emotional body language, perception, Social robotics}, issn = {1875-4791}, doi = {10.1007/s12369-013-0193-z}, url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12369-013-0193-z}, author = {Aryel Beck and Lola Ca{\~n}amero and Antoine Hiolle and Luisa Damiano and Cosi, Piero and Tesser, Fabio and Sommavilla, Giacomo} } @article {2012, title = {The Frontier of Synthetic Knowledge: Toward a Constructivist Science}, journal = {World Futures}, volume = {68}, year = {2012}, note = {Download}, pages = {171{\textendash}177}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, abstract = {This article focuses on the frontier between the technological domain of production of artefacts and the naturalistic domain of the sciences of life and cognition. It shows that, since the 1940s, this frontier has become the place of production of an innovative kind of scientific knowledge{\textemdash}{\textquotedblleft}synthetic knowledge.{\textquotedblright} The article describes the methodology and the main characteristics of synthetic knowledge, and formulates a hypothesis on its epistemological genealogy. Accordingly, it characterizes synthetic knowledge as one of the most advanced expressions of a heterodox tradition of research which, since the 1930s, has been promoting the development of a {\textquotedblleft}non-representationalist{\textquotedblright}{\textemdash}{\textquotedblleft}constructivist{\textquotedblright}{\textemdash}science.}, doi = {10.1080/02604027.2012.668409}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02604027.2012.668409}, author = {Luisa Damiano and Lola Ca{\~n}amero} } @inproceedings {2011, title = {Children Interpretation of Emotional Body Language Displayed by a Robot}, booktitle = {Proc. 3rd International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR 2011)}, year = {2011}, note = {Download}, pages = {62{\textendash}70}, publisher = {Springer}, organization = {Springer}, address = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands}, abstract = {Previous results show that adults are able to interpret different key poses displayed by the robot and also that changing the head position affects the expressiveness of the key poses in a consistent way. Moving the head down leads to decreased arousal (the level of energy), valence (positive or negative) and stance (approaching or avoiding) whereas moving the head up produces an increase along these dimensions [1]. Hence, changing the head position during an interaction should send intuitive signals which could be used during an interaction. The ALIZ-E target group are children between the age of 8 and 11. Existing results suggest that they would be able to interpret human emotional body language [2, 3]. Based on these results, an experiment was conducted to test whether the results of [1] can be applied to children. If yes body postures and head position could be used to convey emotions during an interaction.}, isbn = {978-3-642-25504-5}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-25504-5_7}, url = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007\%2F978-3-642-25504-5_7}, author = {Aryel Beck and Lola Ca{\~n}amero and Luisa Damiano and Sommavilla, Giacomo and Tesser, Fabio and Cosi, Piero} } @inproceedings {2011, title = {Grounding Synthetic Knowledge: An Epistemological Framework and Criteria of Relevance for the Scientific Exploration of Life, Affect and Social Cognition}, booktitle = {Advances In Artificial Life, ECAL 2011 (Proc. 11th European Conference on Artificial Life)}, year = {2011}, note = {Download (PDF)}, pages = {200{\textendash}207}, publisher = {MIT Press}, organization = {MIT Press}, address = {Paris, France}, abstract = {In what ways can artificial life contribute to the scientific exploration of cognitive, affective and social processes? In what sense can synthetic models be relevant for the advancement of behavioral and cognitive sciences? This article addresses these questions by way of a case study {\textemdash} an interdisciplinary cooperation between developmental robotics and developmental psychology in the exploration of attachment bonds. Its main aim is to show how the synthetic study of cognition, as well as the synthetic study of life, can find in autopoietic cognitive biology more than a theory useful to inspire the synthetic modelling of the processes under inquiry. We argue that autopoiesis offers, not only to artificial life, but also to the behavioural and social sciences, an epistemological framework able to generate general criteria of relevance for synthetic models of living and cognitive processes. By {\textquotedblleft}criteria of relevance{\textquotedblright} we mean criteria (a) valuable for the three main branches of artificial life (soft, hard, and wet) and (b) useful for determining the significance of the models each branch produces for the scientific exploration of life and cognition. On the basis of these criteria and their application to the case study presented, this article defines a range of different ways that synthetic, and particularly autopoiesis-based models, can be relevant to the inquiries of biological, behavioural and cognitive sciences.}, isbn = {978-0-262-29714-1}, url = {https://mitpress-request.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/alife/0262297140chap33.pdf}, author = {Luisa Damiano and Antoine Hiolle and Lola Ca{\~n}amero}, editor = {Tom Lenaerts and Mario Giacobini and Hugues Bersini and Paul Bourgine and Marco Dorigo and Ren{\'e} Doursat} } @inproceedings {2010, title = {Constructing Emotions: Epistemological Groundings and Applications in Robotics for a Synthetic Approach to Emotions}, booktitle = {International Symposium on AI-Inspired Biology}, year = {2010}, note = {Download (PDF)}, pages = {20{\textendash}28}, publisher = {The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour}, organization = {The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour}, address = {De Montford University, Leicester, UK}, abstract = {Can the sciences of the artificial positively contribute to the scientific exploration of life and cognition? Can they actually improve the scientific knowledge of natural living and cognitive processes, from biological metabolism to reproduction, from conceptual mapping of the environment to logic reasoning, language, or even emotional expression? To these kinds of questions our article aims to answer in the affirmative. Its main object is the scientific emergent methodology often called the {\textquotedblleft}synthetic approach{\textquotedblright}, which promotes the programmatic production of embodied and situated models of living and cognitive systems in order to explore aspects of life and cognition not accessible in natural systems and scenarios. The first part of this article presents and discusses the synthetic approach, and proposes an epistemological framework which promises to warrant genuine transmission of knowledge from the sciences of the artificial to the sciences of the natural. The second part of this article looks at the research applying the synthetic approach to the psychological study of emotional development. It shows how robotics, through the synthetic methodology, can develop a particular perspective on emotions, coherent with current psychological theories of emotional development and fitting well with the recent {\textquotedblleft}cognitive extension{\textquotedblright} approach proposed by cognitive sciences and philosophy of mind.}, isbn = {1902956923}, url = {http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/aiib/Symposium_6/Papers/Damiano.pdf}, author = {Luisa Damiano and Lola Ca{\~n}amero}, editor = {Jackie Chappell and Susannah Thorpe and Nick Hawes and Aaron Sloman} }