Cognitiveandaffectivearchitecturefor
socialHuman-RobotInteractions
SocialContext
Mostrobotsinusetodayhaveanindustrialormilitaryuse.However
servicerobotsfordailylifenowchallengethisprofessionalusage.In
2012, about 3 millions service robots for personal and domestic
usageweresold.Thesesalesmainlyincludevacuumrobotsandlawn
mowingrobots.However,anewtypeofrobotsisemerging,aimingat
assisting people during their daily life activities. One can think of
assistive robots taking care of elderly people, or pedagogical robots
for children. More generally these robots are called “companion
robots”becausetheirmainmissionistosupportandassistpeoplein
their everyday life activities and to keep them company. One of the
specificities of such robots is that they interact more and more
closely with their human users, and their value is much more on social than physical
interaction [1]. By close, we mean that robots must share not only the same physical
spacebutalsogoalsandbeliefstoachieveacommontaskthroughtheirinteractions.
Researchchallenges
Duringthepastdecades,researchinroboticshasmainlyfocusedonfundamentalskills
such as robust perception, navigation and catching or moving things. One of the
challengesisnowtoendowourcompanionrobotswithsubtleandsmartabilitiessuch
as understanding and reasoning, emotion detection and expression, empathetic
behaviour,... They should also interact intuitively and easily through speech, gestures,
andfacialexpressions.
Inspiteofthenumerouscontributionsinthefieldofcognitivearchitectures,(seegood
reviewsforexample[11],[12]),mostofthemaregenericandfewcanreallydealwith
the complexity of human-robot interactions (HRI). They are not tailored to meet the
specificneedsofsocialHRI,suchashandlingemotions,language,socialnorms...
That is why developing a cognitive architecture for social robots able to take into
accountthecomplexityofinteractionswithhumansstillremainsarealchallenge.Such
an architecture requires various features: emotions, non-verbal aspects of interaction,
reactive and deliberative levels (fast emotional answer versus slower and more
deliberateanswer),explicitmanipulationofmentalstates(enablingself-explanation)...
PHDresearchobjectives
This PHD thesis follows our previous work in three research projects funded by the
French national research Agency (ANR): ANR CECIL project, ANR MOCA project and
ANRSOMBREROproject.Theseprojectshavecontributedtotheongoingdevelopment
ofourCognitiveandAffectiveInteraction-OrientedarchitecturecalledCAIO(seeBestLate
BreakingReportNominationpaper[10]).
ThegoalsofthisPhDthesisarethreefold:
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•
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to fully implement this architecture and experimentation scenarios, using a
lightweighthumanoidrobot(forinstanceaNaorobot)
to propose an evaluation method and criteria, and apply this to experimentally
evaluatethearchitectureatallstagesofdevelopment
to identify from these experimentations the necessary additions to improve the
socialcapabilitiesofrobotsendowedwiththisarchitecture,andtorealisesome
ofthese,forinstance:
o automaticactivityanalysistolearnsociallyacceptableinteractionmodels;
o multimodalperceptionoftheuser,includingtheiremotions;
o impactofemotionsonvariouscognitiveprocesses(memory,planning...).
University,laboratory,team
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UniversityofGrenoble-Alps:http://www.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/en/
GrenobleInformaticsLaboratory:https://www.liglab.fr
MAGMAteam:http://magma.imag.fr/
Supervisors
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SylviePesty([email protected])GrenobleInformaticsdeGrenoble
http://magma.imag.fr/content/sylvie-pesty
Co-Supervisors
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•
CaroleAdam([email protected])Laboratoired’InformatiquedeGrenoble
http://magma.imag.fr/content/carole-adam DamienPellier([email protected])Laboratoired’InformatiquedeGrenoble
http://magma.imag.fr/content/damien-pellier Bibliography
[1] Johnson,D.O.,etal.,Sociallyassistiverobots:acomprehensiveapproachtoextending
independentliving.InternationalJournalofSocialRobotics,2013:p.195-211.
[2] Cabibihan,J.-J.,etal.,WhyRobots?Asurveyontherolesandbenefitsofsocialrobots
inthetherapyofchildrenwithautism.InternationalJournalofSocialRobotics,2013.
5(4):p.593-618.
[3] Fasola, J. and M. Mataric, A socially assistive robot exercise coach for the elderly.
JournalofHuman-RobotInteraction,2013.2(2):p.3-32.
[4] Mazzoleni, S., et al., Acceptability of robotic technology in neuro-rehabilitation:
Preliminary results on chronic stroke patients. Computer Methods and Programs in
Biomedicine,2014:p.1-7.
[5] Tencé,F.,etal.,Stablegrowingneuralgas:Atopologylearningalgorithmbasedon
playertrackinginvideogames.Appl.SoftComput.,2013.13(10):p.4174-4184.
[6] Rivière,D.,C.Adam,andS.Pesty.AreasoningmoduletoselectECA'scommunicative
intention. in International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA). 2012.
SantaCruz,CA.p.447-454.
[7] Scherer, K.R. and H. Ellgring, Are facial expressions of emotion produced by
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113-130.
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[9] G.Milliez,M.Warnier,A.Clodic,R.Alami.Aframeworkforendowinganinteractive
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[10] W. Johal, D. Pellier, C. Adam, H. Fiorino, and S. Pesty. A Cognitive and Affective
Architecture for Social Human-Robot Interaction. In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Extended Abstracts
(HRI'15ExtendedAbstracts).ACM,NewYork,NY,USA,71-72,2015.
[11]H.-Q.Chong,A.-H.Tan,andG.-W.Ng.Integratedcognitivearchitectures:asurvey.In:
ArtificialIntelligenceReview,vol.28(2),pp.103–130,Feb.2009.
[12]Thòrisson,KristinnandHelgasson,Helgi.CognitiveArchitecturesandAutonomy:A
ComparativeReview.In:JournalofArtificialGeneralIntelligence,vol3,pp.1—30,2012.