TY - CHAP T1 - When Emotional Machines are Intelligent Machines: The Tangled Knot of Affective Cognition T2 - Emotional Machines. Perspectives from Affective Computing and Emotional Human-Machine Interaction Y1 - 2023 A1 - Cañamero, L. ED - Misselhorn, C. ED - Poljanšek, T. ED - Störzinger, T. ED - M. Klein AB - Research in neurobiology has provided evidence that emotions pervade human intelligence at many levels. However, “emotion” and “cognition” are still largely conceptualized as separate notions that “interact”, and untangling and modeling those interactions remains a challenge, both in biological and artificial systems. My research focuses on modeling in autonomous robots how “cognition”, “motivation” and “emotion” interact in what we could term embodied affective cognition, and particularly investigating how affect lies at the root of and drives how agents apprehend and interact with the world, making them “intelligent” in the sense of being able to adapt to their environments in flexible and beneficial ways. In this chapter, I discuss this issue as I illustrate how my embodied model of affect has been used in my group to ground a broad range of affective, cognitive and social skills such as adaptive action selection, different types of learning, development, and social interaction. JF - Emotional Machines. Perspectives from Affective Computing and Emotional Human-Machine Interaction PB - Springer VS CY - Wiesbaden SN - 978-3-658-37640-6 UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37641-3_6 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The Long-Term Efficacy of “Social Buffering” in Artificial Social Agents: Contextual Affective Perception Matters JF - Frontiers in Robotics and AI Y1 - 2022 A1 - Imran Khan A1 - Cañamero, L. PB - Frontiers in Robotics and AI VL - 9 UR - https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2022.699573 IS - article 699573 ER - TY - CONF T1 - Adaptation-By-Proxy: Contagion Effect of Social Buffering in an Artificial Society T2 - ALIFE 2021: The 2021 Conference on Artificial Life Y1 - 2021 A1 - Imran Khan A1 - Lola Cañamero AB - The “social buffering” phenomenon proposes that social support facilitates wellbeing by reducing stress in a number of different ways. While this phenomenon may benefit agents with social support from others, its potential effects on the wider social group are less clear. Using a biologically-inspired artificial life model, we have investigated how some of the hypothesised hormonal mechanisms that underpin the “social buffering” phenomenon affect the wellbeing and interactions of agents without social support across numerous social and physical contexts. We tested these effects in a small, rank-based society, with half of the agents endowed with numerous hormonal mechanisms associated with “social buffering”, and half without. Surprisingly, our results found that these “social buffering” mechanisms provided survival-related advantages to agents without social support across numerous conditions. We found that agents with socially-adaptive mechanisms themselves become a proxy for adaptation, and suggest that, in some (artificial) societies, “social buffering” may be a contagious phenomenon. JF - ALIFE 2021: The 2021 Conference on Artificial Life PB - The MIT Press UR - https://direct.mit.edu/isal/proceedings/isal/90/102917 N1 - Download (Open Access) ER - TY - CONF T1 - Does Expression of Grounded Affect in a Hexapod Robot Elicit More Prosocial Responses? T2 - UKRAS20 Conference: "Robots into the real world" Proceedings Y1 - 2020 A1 - Hickton, Luke A1 - Lewis, Matthew A1 - Kheng Lee Koay A1 - Lola Cañamero AB - We consider how non-humanoid robots can communicate their affective state via bodily forms of communication, and the extent to which this can influence human response. We propose a simple model of grounded affect and kinesic expression and outline two experiments (N=9 and N=180) in which participants were asked to watch expressive and non-expressive hexapod robots perform different ‘scenes’. Our preliminary findings suggest the expressive robot stimulated greater desire for interaction, and was more likely to be attributed with emotion. It also elicited more desire for prosocial behaviour. JF - UKRAS20 Conference: "Robots into the real world" Proceedings CY - Lincoln, UK UR - https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2299/22817/UKRAS20_paper_09.pdf N1 - Download (Open Access) ER - TY - CONF T1 - Modelling the Social Buffering Hypothesis in an Artificial Life Environment T2 - Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference 2020 (ALIFE 2020) Y1 - 2020 A1 - Imran Khan A1 - Lewis, Matthew A1 - Lola Cañamero ED - Josh Bongard ED - Juniper Lovato ED - Laurent Hebert-Dufrésne ED - Radhakrishna Dasari ED - Lisa Soros AB - In social species, individuals who form social bonds have been found to live longer, healthier lives. One hypothesised reason for this effect is that social support, mediated by oxytocin, "buffers" responses to stress in a number of ways, and is considered an important process of adaptation that facilitates long-term wellbeing in changing, stressful conditions. Using an artificial life model, we have investigated the role of one hypothesised stress-reducing effect of social support on the survival and social interactions of agents in a small society. We have investigated this effect using different types of social bonds and bond partner combinations across environmentally-challenging conditions. Our results have found that stress reduction through social support benefits the survival of agents with social bonds, and that this effect often extends to the wider society. We have also found that this effect is significantly affected by environmental and social contexts. Our findings suggest that these "social buffering" effects may not be universal, but dependent upon the degree of environmental challenges, the quality of affective relationships and the wider social context. JF - Proceedings of the Artificial Life Conference 2020 (ALIFE 2020) PB - MIT Press CY - Montreal, Canada UR - https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/isal_a_00302 N1 - Download (Open Access) ER - TY - CONF T1 - The Effects of Affective Social Bonds on the Interactions and Survival of Simulated Agents T2 - ACII2019 Workshop on Social Emotions, Theories and Models (SE-THEMO) Y1 - 2019 A1 - Imran Khan A1 - Lewis, Matthew A1 - Lola Cañamero AB - The formation and maintenance of affective social bonds plays a key role in the well-being of social agents. Oxytocin has been correlated with social partner preference, and it is hypothesised to influence prosocial behaviours. In this paper, we investigate the effects of modulating the preference of affective social bond partners through oxytocin during decisions related to food-sharing and grooming, in a society of simulated agents with different dominance ranks. Our results show survival benefits for agents with affective social bonds across a number of groups with different bond combinations. We observe a number of emergent social behaviours and suggest that our results bear some similarity with behaviors observed in biological agents. JF - ACII2019 Workshop on Social Emotions, Theories and Models (SE-THEMO) CY - Cambridge, UK UR - https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8925031 N1 - Download (or Download accepted version) ER - TY - CONF T1 - Adaptation and the Social Salience Hypothesis of Oxytocin: Early Experiments in a Simulated Agent Environment T2 - Proc. 2nd Symposium on Social Interactions in Complex Intelligent Systems (SICIS) Y1 - 2018 A1 - Imran Khan A1 - Lewis, Matthew A1 - Lola Cañamero AB - Allostasis is a mechanism that permits adaptation of an organism as a response to changing (physical or social) environmental conditions. Allostasis is driven by a number of factors, including regulation through hormonal mechanisms. Oxytocin (OT) is a hormone that has been found to play a role in regulating social behaviours and adaptation. However, the concrete effects that OT promotes remain unclear and controversial. One of these effects is on the attention paid to social cues (social salience). Two opposing hypotheses have been proposed. One hypothesis is that adaptation is achieved by increasing attention to social cues (increasing social salience), the other that adaptation is achieved by decreasing attention to social cues (decreasing social salience). In this paper, we present agent simulation experiments that test these two contrasting hypotheses under different environmental conditions related to food availability: a comfortable environment, a challenging environment, and a very challenging environment. Our results show that, for the particular conditions modelled, increased social salience through the release of simulated oxytocin presents significant advantages in the challenging conditions. JF - Proc. 2nd Symposium on Social Interactions in Complex Intelligent Systems (SICIS) T3 - Proc. 2018 Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB 2018) CY - Liverpool, UK UR - http://aisb2018.csc.liv.ac.uk/PROCEEDINGS%20AISB2018/Social%20Interactions%20in%20Complex%20Intelligent%20Systems%20(SICIS)%20-%20AISB2018.pdf N1 - Download full proceedings (PDF) ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Modelling Adaptation through Social Allostasis: Modulating the Effects of Social Touch with Oxytocin in Embodied Agents JF - Multimodal Technologies and Interaction Y1 - 2018 A1 - Imran Khan A1 - Lola Cañamero AB - Social allostasis is a mechanism of adaptation that permits individuals to dynamically adapt their physiology to changing physical and social conditions. Oxytocin (OT) is widely considered to be one of the hormones that drives and adapts social behaviours. While its precise effects remain unclear, two areas where OT may promote adaptation are by affecting social salience, and affecting internal responses of performing social behaviours. Working towards a model of dynamic adaptation through social allostasis in simulated embodied agents, and extending our previous work studying OT-inspired modulation of social salience, we present a model and experiments that investigate the effects and adaptive value of allostatic processes based on hormonal (OT) modulation of affective elements of a social behaviour. In particular, we investigate and test the effects and adaptive value of modulating the degree of satisfaction of tactile contact in a social motivation context in a small simulated agent society across different environmental challenges (related to availability of food) and effects of OT modulation of social salience as a motivational incentive. Our results show that the effects of these modulatory mechanisms have different (positive or negative) adaptive value across different groups and under different environmental circumstance in a way that supports the context-dependent nature of OT, put forward by the interactionist approach to OT modulation in biological agents. In terms of simulation models, this means that OT modulation of the mechanisms that we have described should be context-dependent in order to maximise viability of our socially adaptive agents, illustrating the relevance of social allostasis mechanisms. PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Switzerland VL - 2 UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2414-4088/2/4/67 IS - 4 N1 - Download (Open Access) ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Towards Long-Term Social Child-Robot Interaction: Using Multi-Activity Switching to Engage Young Users JF - Journal of Human-Robot Interaction Y1 - 2016 A1 - Coninx, Alexandre A1 - Paul E. Baxter A1 - Oleari, Elettra A1 - Bellini, Sara A1 - Bierman, Bert A1 - Henkemans, Olivier Blanson A1 - Lola Cañamero A1 - Cosi, Piero A1 - Valentin Enescu A1 - Espinoza, Raquel Ros A1 - Antoine Hiolle A1 - Remi Humbert A1 - Kiefer, Bernd A1 - Kruijff-Korbayová, Ivana A1 - Looije, Rosmarijn A1 - Mosconi, Marco A1 - Mark A. Neerincx A1 - Giulio Paci A1 - Patsis, Georgios A1 - Pozzi, Clara A1 - Sacchitelli, Francesca A1 - Hichem Sahli A1 - Alberto Sanna A1 - Sommavilla, Giacomo A1 - Tesser, Fabio A1 - Yiannis Demiris A1 - Tony Belpaeme AB - Social robots have the potential to provide support in a number of practical domains, such as learning and behaviour change. This potential is particularly relevant for children, who have proven receptive to interactions with social robots. To reach learning and therapeutic goals, a number of issues need to be investigated, notably the design of an effective child-robot interaction (cHRI) to ensure the child remains engaged in the relationship and that educational goals are met. Typically, current cHRI research experiments focus on a single type of interaction activity (e.g. a game). However, these can suffer from a lack of adaptation to the child, or from an increasingly repetitive nature of the activity and interaction. In this paper, we motivate and propose a practicable solution to this issue: an adaptive robot able to switch between multiple activities within single interactions. We describe a system that embodies this idea, and present a case study in which diabetic children collaboratively learn with the robot about various aspects of managing their condition. We demonstrate the ability of our system to induce a varied interaction and show the potential of this approach both as an educational tool and as a research method for long-term cHRI. VL - 5 UR - https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.5898/JHRI.5.1.Coninx IS - 1 N1 - Download (Open Access) ER - TY - CONF T1 - Let’s Be Friends: Perception of a Social Robotic Companion for children with T1DM T2 - Proc. New Friends 2015 Y1 - 2015 A1 - Kruijff-Korbayová, Ivana A1 - Oleari, Elettra A1 - Pozzi, Clara A1 - Sacchitelli, Francesca A1 - Bagherzadhalimi, Anahita A1 - Bellini, Sara A1 - Kiefer, Bernd A1 - Racioppa, Stefania A1 - Coninx, Alexandre A1 - Paul E. Baxter A1 - Bierman, Bert A1 - Henkemans, Olivier Blanson A1 - Mark A. Neerincx A1 - Rosemarijn Looije A1 - Yiannis Demiris A1 - Espinoza, Raquel Ros A1 - Mosconi, Marco A1 - Cosi, Piero A1 - Remi Humbert A1 - Lola Cañamero A1 - Hichem Sahli A1 - Joachim de Greeff A1 - James Kennedy A1 - Robin Read A1 - Lewis, Matthew A1 - Antoine Hiolle A1 - Giulio Paci A1 - Sommavilla, Giacomo A1 - Tesser, Fabio A1 - Athanasopoulos, Georgios A1 - Patsis, Georgios A1 - Verhelst, Werner A1 - Alberto Sanna A1 - Tony Belpaeme AB - We describe the social characteristics of a robot developed to support children with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) in the process of education and care. We evaluated the perception of the robot at a summer camp where diabetic children aged 10-14 experienced the robot in group interactions. Children in the intervention condition additionally interacted with it also individually, in one-to-one sessions featuring several game-like activities. These children perceived the robot significantly more as a friend than those in the control group. They also readily engaged with it in dialogues about their habits related to healthy lifestyle as well as personal experiences concerning diabetes. This indicates that the one-on-one interactions added a special quality to the relationship of the children with the robot. JF - Proc. New Friends 2015 CY - Almere, The Netherlands UR - https://mheerink.home.xs4all.nl/pdf/ProceedingsNF2015-3.pdf N1 - Download full proceedings (PDF) ER - TY - CONF T1 - Children's Adaptation in Multi-session Interaction with a Humanoid Robot T2 - 2012 IEEE RO-MAN: The 21st IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication Y1 - 2012 A1 - Nalin, Marco A1 - Baroni, Ilaria A1 - Kruijff-Korbayová, Ivana A1 - Lola Cañamero A1 - Lewis, Matthew A1 - Aryel Beck A1 - Cuayáhuitl, Heriberto A1 - Alberto Sanna AB - This work presents preliminary observations from a study of children (N=19, age 5–12) interacting in multiple sessions with a humanoid robot in a scenario involving game activities. The main purpose of the study was to see how their perception of the robot, their engagement, and their enjoyment of the robot as a companion evolve across multiple interactions, separated by one-two weeks. However, an interesting phenomenon was observed during the experiment: most of the children soon adapted to the behaviors of the robot, in terms of speech timing, speed and tone, verbal input formulation, nodding, gestures, etc. We describe the experimental setup and the system, and our observations and preliminary analysis results, which open interesting questions for further research. JF - 2012 IEEE RO-MAN: The 21st IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication PB - IEEE UR - http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6343778/ N1 - Download ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Multimodal Child-Robot Interaction: Building Social Bonds JF - Journal of Human-Robot Interaction Y1 - 2012 A1 - Tony Belpaeme A1 - Paul E. Baxter A1 - Robin Read A1 - Rachel Wood A1 - Cuayáhuitl, Heriberto A1 - Kiefer, Bernd A1 - Racioppa, Stefania A1 - Kruijff-Korbayová, Ivana A1 - Athanasopoulos, Georgios A1 - Valentin Enescu A1 - Rosemarijn Looije A1 - Mark A. Neerincx A1 - Yiannis Demiris A1 - Raquel Ros-Espinoza A1 - Aryel Beck A1 - Lola Cañamero A1 - Lewis, Matthew A1 - Baroni, Ilaria A1 - Nalin, Marco A1 - Cosi, Piero A1 - Giulio Paci A1 - Tesser, Fabio A1 - Sommavilla, Giacomo A1 - Remi Humbert AB - For robots to interact effectively with human users they must be capable of coordinated, timely behavior in response to social context. The Adaptive Strategies for Sustainable Long-Term Social Interaction (ALIZ-E) project focuses on the design of long-term, adaptive social interaction between robots and child users in real-world settings. In this paper, we report on the iterative approach taken to scientific and technical developments toward this goal: advancing individual technical competencies and integrating them to form an autonomous robotic system for evaluation “in the wild.” The first evaluation iterations have shown the potential of this methodology in terms of adaptation of the robot to the interactant and the resulting influences on engagement. This sets the foundation for an ongoing research program that seeks to develop technologies for social robot companions. VL - 1 UR - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3109688.3109691 IS - 2 N1 - Download (Open Access) ER - TY - CONF T1 - Long-Term Human-Robot Interaction with Young Users T2 - Proc. ACM/IEEE Human-Robot Interaction conference (HRI-2011) (Robots with Children Workshop) Y1 - 2011 A1 - Paul E. Baxter A1 - Tony Belpaeme A1 - Lola Cañamero A1 - Cosi, Piero A1 - Yiannis Demiris A1 - Valentin Enescu A1 - Antoine Hiolle A1 - Kruijff-Korbayová, Ivana A1 - Rosemarijn Looije A1 - Nalin, Marco A1 - Mark A. Neerincx A1 - Hichem Sahli A1 - Giocomo Sommavilla A1 - Tesser, Fabio A1 - Rachel Wood AB - Artificial companion agents have the potential to combine novel means for effective health communication with young patients support and entertainment. However, the theory and practice of long-term child-robot interaction is currently an underdeveloped area of research. This paper introduces an approach that integrates multiple functional aspects necessary to implement temporally extended human-robot interaction in the setting of a paediatric ward. We present our methodology for the implementation of a companion robot which will be used to support young patients in hospital as they learn to manage a lifelong metabolic disorder (diabetes). The robot will interact with patients over an extended period of time. The necessary functional aspects are identified and introduced, and a review of the technical challenges involved is presented. JF - Proc. ACM/IEEE Human-Robot Interaction conference (HRI-2011) (Robots with Children Workshop) CY - Lausanne, Switzerland UR - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228470784_Long-term_human-robot_interaction_with_young_users N1 - Downlaod ER - TY - CHAP T1 - Emotion Modelling and Facial Affect Recognition in Human-Computer and Human-Robot Interaction T2 - Affective Computing, Emotion Modelling, Synthesis and Recognition Y1 - 2009 A1 - Lori Malatesta A1 - John C Murray A1 - Amaryllis Raouzaiou A1 - Antoine Hiolle A1 - Lola Cañamero A1 - Kostas Karpouzis ED - Mario I. Chacon-M. JF - Affective Computing, Emotion Modelling, Synthesis and Recognition PB - InTechOpen Publishers SN - 978-3-902613-42-4 UR - http://www.intechopen.com/books/state_of_the_art_in_face_recognition/emotion_modelling_and_facial_affect_recognition_in_human-computer_and_human-robot_interaction ER - TY - CONF T1 - The Influence of Social Interaction on the Perception of Emotional Expression: A Case Study with a Robot Head T2 - Advances in Robotics: Proc. FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 Y1 - 2009 A1 - John C Murray A1 - Lola Cañamero A1 - Kim A. Bard A1 - Ross, Marina Davila A1 - Thorsteinsson, Kate ED - Kim, Jong-Hwan ED - Ge, Shuzhi Sam ED - Vadakkepat, Prahlad ED - Jesse, Norbert ED - Al Manum, Abdullah ED - Puthusserypady K, Sadasivan ED - Rückert, Ulrich ED - Sitte, Joaquin ED - Witkowski, Ulf ED - Nakatsu, Ryohei ED - Braunl, Thomas ED - Baltes, Jacky ED - Anderson, John ED - Wong, Ching-Chang ED - Verner, Igor ED - Ahlgren, David AB - In this paper we focus primarily on the influence that socio-emotional interaction has on the perception of emotional expression by a robot. We also investigate and discuss the importance of emotion expression in socially interactive situations involving human robot interaction (HRI), and show the importance of utilising emotion expression when dealing with interactive robots, that are to learn and develop in socially situated environments. We discuss early expressional development and the function of emotion in communication in humans and how this can improve HRI communications. Finally we provide experimental results showing how emotion-rich interaction via emotion expression can affect the HRI process by providing additional information. JF - Advances in Robotics: Proc. FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science PB - Springer Berlin Heidelberg CY - Incheon, Korea VL - 5744 SN - 978-3-642-03983-6 UR - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-03983-6_10 ER - TY - CONF T1 - Developing Sensorimotor Associations Through Attachment Bonds T2 - Proc. 7th International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics (EpiRob 2007) Y1 - 2007 A1 - Antoine Hiolle A1 - Lola Cañamero ED - Luc Berthouze ED - C G Prince ED - M Littman ED - Hideki Kozima ED - Christian Balkenius AB - Attachment bonds and positive affect help cognitive development and social interactions in infants and animals. In this paper we present a neural architecture to enable a robot to develop an attachment bond with a person or an object, and to discover the correct sensorimotor associations to maintain a desired affective state of well-being using a minimum amount of prior knowledge about the possible interactions with this object. We also discuss how our research on attachment bonds could further developmental robotics in the near future. JF - Proc. 7th International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics (EpiRob 2007) T3 - Lund University Cognitive Studies PB - Lund University CY - Piscataway, NJ, USA VL - 134 SN - 91-974741-8-5 UR - https://www.lucs.lu.se/LUCS/135/Hiolle.pdf ER - TY - CONF T1 - From Imprinting to Adaptation: Building a History of Affective Interaction T2 - Fifth International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems (EpiRob2005) Y1 - 2005 A1 - Arnaud J Blanchard A1 - Lola Cañamero ED - Luc Berthouze ED - Frédéric Kaplan ED - Hideki Kozima ED - Hiroyuki Yano ED - Jürgen Konczak ED - Giorgio Metta ED - Jacqueline Nadel ED - Giulio Sandini ED - Georgi Stojanov ED - Christian Balkenius AB - We present a Perception-Action architecture and experiments to simulate imprinting—the establishment of strong attachment links with a "caregiver"—in a robot. Following recent theories, we do not consider imprinting as rigidly timed and irreversible, but as a more flexible phenomenon that allows for further adaptation as a result of reward-based learning through experience. Our architecture reconciles these two types of perceptual learning traditionally considered as different and even incompatible. After the initial imprinting, adaptation is achieved in the context of a history of "affective" interactions between the robot and a human, driven by "distress" and "comfort" responses in the robot. JF - Fifth International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems (EpiRob2005) PB - Lund University Cognitive Studies SN - 91-974741-4-2 ER - TY - CONF T1 - Analyzing the Performance of "Winner-Take-All" and "Voting-Based" Action Selection Policies within the Two-Resource Problem T2 - Advances in Artificial Life: 7th European Conference, ECAL 2003 Y1 - 2003 A1 - Avila-García, Orlando A1 - Lola Cañamero A1 - René te Boekhorst ED - Banzhaf, Wolfgang ED - Christaller, Thomas ED - Dittrich, Peter ED - Kim, Jan T ED - Ziegler, Jens AB - The problem of action selection for an autonomous creature implies resolving conflicts between competing behavioral alternatives. These conflicts can be resolved either via competition, following a “winner-take-all” approach, or via cooperation in a “voting-based” approach. In this paper we present two robotic architectures implementing these approaches, and report on experiments we have performed to compare their underlying optimization policies. We have framed this study within the context of the “two-resource problem,” as it provides a widely used standard that favors systematic experimentation, analysis, and comparison of results. JF - Advances in Artificial Life: 7th European Conference, ECAL 2003 T3 - Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence PB - Springer CY - Dortmund, Germany VL - 2801 SN - 978-3-540-20057-4 UR - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-540-39432-7_79 N1 - Download ER -