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Colloquia occur: Selected Mondays at 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm - Room PY 101.
Colloquia titles will be posted as they become available.
Also see: vislab.psych.indiana.edu/~jgold/q733
- 09/18 Karl MacDorman, IUPUI - Abstract
- 10/09 Nikolaus Troje, Queens University - Abstract
- 10/23 Emmanuel Sander, Univeritè Paris 8 - Abstract
- 10/30 James Crutchfield, UC Davis - Abstract
- 11/27 Bill Ramsey, Notre Dame - Abstract
- 12/04 Isabel Gauthier, Vanderbilt - Abstract
Abstract 9/18: Karl MacDorman, IUPUI
Title: The uncanny advantage of using androids in cognitive and social science research
Abstract: The development of robots that closely resemble human beings can contribute to cognitive and social science research. An android
provides an experimental apparatus that has the potential to be
controlled more precisely than any human actor. However, preliminary
results indicate that only very humanlike devices can elicit the
broad range of responses that people typically direct toward each
other. Conversely, to build androids capable of emulating human
behavior, we need to investigate social activity in detail and to
develop models of the cognitive mechanisms that support this
activity. Because of the reciprocal relationship between android
development and the exploration of social mechanisms, it is
necessary to establish the field of android science. Androids could
be a key testing ground for social, cognitive, and neuroscientific
theories as well as platform for their eventual unification.
Nevertheless, subtle flaws in appearance and movement can be more
apparent and more eerie in very humanlike robots. This uncanny
phenomenon may be symptomatic of entities that elicit our model of a
human other but do not measure up to it. If so, very humanlike
robots may provide the best means of pinpointing what kinds of
behavior are perceived as human, since deviations from human norms
are more obvious in them than in more mechanical-looking robots. In
pursuing this line of inquiry, it is essential to identify the
mechanisms involved in evaluations of human likeness. One hypothesis
is that, by playing on an innate fear of death, an uncanny robot
elicits culturally-supported defense responses for coping with
death's inevitability. An experiment, which borrows from methods
used in terror management research, was performed to test this
hypothesis.
MacDorman, K. F. & Ishiguro, H. (2006). The uncanny advantage of
using androids in social and cognitive science research. Interaction
Studies, 7(3), pp. 297-337.10/9: Nikolaus Troje, Queens University
Title: Multiple inversion effects in biological motion perception: Evidence for a “life detector”?
Abstract: If biological motion point-light displays are presented
upside-down adequate perception is strongly impaired. Reminiscent of the
inversion effect in face recognition, it has been suggested that the
inversion effect in biological motion is due to impaired configural
processing in a highly trained expert system. I will present data that
are incompatible with this view. Particularly, I will show that
observers can readily retrieve information about direction from
scrambled point-light displays of humans and animals. Even though all
configural information is entirely disrupted, perception of these
displays is still subject to a significant inversion effect. Inverting
only parts of the display reveals that the information about direction
as well as the associated inversion effect are entirely carried by the
local motion of the feet. I will interpret these findings in terms of a
visual filter that is tuned to the characteristic motion of the limbs of
an animal in locomotion and hypothesize that this mechanism serves as a
general detection system for the presence of articulated terrestrial
animals.10/23: Emmanuel Sander, Univeritè Paris 8
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA10/30: James Crutchfield, UC Davis
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA11/27: Bill Ramsey, Notre Dame
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA12/4: Isabel Gauthier, Vanderbilt
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA |
