A mobile service robot performing a task for its user might not be able to accomplish its mission without help from other people present in the shared environment. In previous research, collaborative control has been studied as an interactive mode of operation with a robot, compensating for its limitations in autonomy. However, few studies of robots requesting assistance by detecting potential collaborators, directing its attention to them, addressing them, and finally obtaining help from them, have previously been performed in real-world (...) use contexts. This study focuses on a fetch-and-carry robot, Cero, which has been designed to operate in an office environment as an aid for motion-impaired users. During its missions, the robot sometimes needs help with loading or unloading an object. The main question for the study was: under what conditions are people willing to help when requested to do so by the robot? We were particularly interested in bystanders, i.e. people who happened to be in the environment but who did not “have any official business” with the robot. To answer these questions and to provide a better understanding of human–robot help-seeking situations, we conducted an experimental study in which subjects who had not encountered our service robot before were requested to assist it with a task. The results of the study confirm that bystanders can to some degree be expected to help in robot missions, but that their willingness to help the robot depends on the situation and state of occupation that people are in when requested to interact with and assist the robot. (shrink)

A mobile service robot performing a task for its user might not be able to accomplish its mission without help from other people present in the shared environment. In previous research, collaborative control has been studied as an interactive mode of operation with a robot, compensating for its limitations in autonomy. However, few studies of robots requesting assistance by detecting potential collaborators, directing its attention to them, addressing them, and finally obtaining help from them, have previously been performed in real-world (...) use contexts. This study focuses on a fetch-and-carry robot, Cero, which has been designed to operate in an office environment as an aid for motion-impaired users. During its missions, the robot sometimes needs help with loading or unloading an object. The main question for the study was: under what conditions are people willing to help when requested to do so by the robot? We were particularly interested in bystanders, i.e. people who happened to be in the environment but who did not “have any official business” with the robot. To answer these questions and to provide a better understanding of human–robot help-seeking situations, we conducted an experimental study in which subjects who had not encountered our service robot before were requested to assist it with a task. The results of the study confirm that bystanders can to some degree be expected to help in robot missions, but that their willingness to help the robot depends on the situation and state of occupation that people are in when requested to interact with and assist the robot. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on spatial formations when interacting via mobile robotic telepresence systems. Previous research has found that those who used a MRP system to make a remote visit tended to use different spatial formations from what is typical in human-human interaction. In this paper, we present the results of a study where a pilot user interacted with ten elderly via a MRP system. Intentional deviations from known accepted spatial formations were made in order to study their effect (...) on interaction quality from the local user perspective. Using a retrospective interviews technique, the elderly commented on the interaction and confirmed the importance of adhering to acceptable spatial configurations. The results show that there is a mismatch between pilot user behaviour and local user preference and that it is important to evaluate a MRP system from two perspectives, the pilot user’s and the local user’s. Keywords: F-formations; Mobile Robotic Telepresence; MRP systems; Quality of Interaction; Retrospective Interview; Spatial Formations; Spatial Configurations. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on spatial formations when interacting via mobile robotic telepresence systems. Previous research has found that those who used a MRP system to make a remote visit tended to use different spatial formations from what is typical in human-human interaction. In this paper, we present the results of a study where a pilot user interacted with ten elderly via a MRP system. Intentional deviations from known accepted spatial formations were made in order to study their effect (...) on interaction quality from the local user perspective. Using a retrospective interviews technique, the elderly commented on the interaction and confirmed the importance of adhering to acceptable spatial configurations. The results show that there is a mismatch between pilot user behaviour and local user preference and that it is important to evaluate a MRP system from two perspectives, the pilot user’s and the local user’s. Keywords: F-formations; Mobile Robotic Telepresence; MRP systems; Quality of Interaction; Retrospective Interview; Spatial Formations; Spatial Configurations. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on spatial formations when interacting via mobile robotic telepresence systems. Previous research has found that those who used a MRP system to make a remote visit tended to use different spatial formations from what is typical in human-human interaction. In this paper, we present the results of a study where a pilot user interacted with ten elderly via a MRP system. Intentional deviations from known accepted spatial formations were made in order to study their effect (...) on interaction quality from the local user perspective. Using a retrospective interviews technique, the elderly commented on the interaction and confirmed the importance of adhering to acceptable spatial configurations. The results show that there is a mismatch between pilot user behaviour and local user preference and that it is important to evaluate a MRP system from two perspectives, the pilot user’s and the local user’s. Keywords: F-formations; Mobile Robotic Telepresence; MRP systems; Quality of Interaction; Retrospective Interview; Spatial Formations; Spatial Configurations. (shrink)

Special purpose service robots have already entered the market and their users’ homes. Also the idea of the general purpose service robot or personal robot companion is increasingly discussed and investigated. To probe human–robot interaction with a mobile robot in arbitrary domestic settings, we conducted a study in eight different homes. Based on previous results from laboratory studies we identified particular interaction situations which should be studied thoroughly in real home settings. Based upon the collected sensory data from the robot (...) we found that the different environments influenced the spatial management observable during our subjects’ interaction with the robot. We also validated empirically that the concept of spatial prompting can aid spatial management and communication, and assume this concept to be helpful for Human–Robot Interaction design. In this article we report on our exploratory field study and our findings regarding, in particular, the spatial management observed during show episodes and movement through narrow passages. Keywords: COGNIRON, Domestic Service Robotics, Robot Field Trial, Human Augmented Mapping, Human–Robot Interaction, Spatial Management, Spatial Prompting. (shrink)

Parcels, Sales and Gifts: Hans Sauter's Entomological Practices between Formosa and Europe, 1902–1914. The exploration of global biodiversity is a form of knowledge production that is necessarily specimen‐based. In the endeavor to chart the natural world, not only ideas and writings travelled across the oceans, but also a flood of scientific objects. The German entomologist Hans Sauter (1871–1943) spent most of his life in Formosa, then a Japanese colony. His pronounced aim was to complete an inventory of the entire fauna (...) of Formosa. He aimed for the mass production of knowledge, becoming a collecting‐entrepreneur who employed scores of local collectors. Between 1902 and 1914, they amassed large quantities of insects, which required specialized practices in collecting, preserving, documenting, and packaging. Sauter sent these insects, but also hundreds of reptiles, mammals, birds, fish etc., to zoologists all over Europe who identified and published hitherto undescribed species. At first, Sauter sold his finds. Later, he stopped asking for money – pushing instead for speed in publication and making demands about the content and naming of these articles. His demands were met, especially by the Deutsches Entomologisches Museum in Dahlem. Despite almost no publications to his name, Sauter quickly gained considerable influence in the world of entomological research. In this paper, the circulation of these scientific objects serves as a focal point in order to embed local circumstances in the process of knowledge production in a global context. The practices associated with the specimens illustrate the economic, political and social dimensions of the formation of knowledge. Hans Sauter's case defies traditional dichotomies as it illustrates the interdependence of practical and theoretical knowledge, of science and trade and of center and periphery. Practical knowledge gained in a local setting in Formosa allowed Sauter to amass large amounts of insect specimens, a resource he used to steer the course of scientific practice in Europe. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

In this paper, we analyze what effects indicators of a shared situation have on a speaker’s persuasiveness by investigating how a robot’s advice is received when it indicates that it is sharing the situational context with its user. In our experiment, 80 participants interacted with a robot that referred to aspects of the shared context: Face tracking indicated that the robot saw the participant, incremental feedback suggested that the robot was following their actions, and comments about, and gestures towards, the (...) shared physical situation and linguistic references to the dialog history indicated to participants that the robot had learned from the interaction and perceived its surroundings. The results show that especially the linguistic and gestural references to the shared context have a significant influence on participants’ compliance with the robot’s suggestions. Thus, indicating that it is ‘in the same boat’ with the user, i.e. that it is sharing the situational context, increases a robot’s persuasiveness during advice giving. (shrink)

In Interviews wird – vor allem von Politikern – oft „um den heißen Brei herum geredet“. Welche Gründe gibt es für diese Vagheit in der Sprache und in der inhaltlichen Aussage? Auf welchen Ebenen der Kommunikation liegt die Vagheit in den Fragen und Antworten eines Interviews? Und welche Strategien verfolgen die Interviewpartner damit? Kerstin Petermann hat deutsch- und englischsprachige Interviews mit Gesprächspartnern aus Politik, Kultur und Gesellschaft untersucht. Im Ergebnis Ihrer Studie formuliert sie Aussagen zu Semantik und Syntax in (...) den Interviews sowie wertvolle Hinweise für die journalistische Arbeit. (shrink)

Although we find the idea of representation by similarities attractive as such, we have two main objections to the specific proposal of Edelman. First, he does not consider complexity issues in terms of storage and speed of recall for recognition. Related to this, the appearance of objects depends on far more factors than just shape, illumination, and pose. This requires an intermediate shape abstraction process that extracts category-specific shape properties from the mixed appearance of images.

0 Introduction 0.1 Variation in nominal coreference Nominal coreference has received much interest in the field of text linguistics as an essential strategy ...

RÉSUMÉ La problématique de l’écriture et la vie sera abordée dans le présent article, où je soulignerai que, dès ses débuts, la position d’Hélène Cixous suppose une distanciation de l’auteure par rapport à l’écriture autobiographique. En centrant mon analyse sur une scène de Si près, je constate que l’expérience de la narratrice faite chez les écrivains publics à Oran démontre cette même position: c’est l’écrivain qui est l’inventeur de l’écriture et la fiction ne reproduit pas le réel. J’établis une comparaison (...) entre Cixous et Cervantes: dans Don Quichotte I, chapitre 9, il y a une scène métafictive qui, d’une manière semblable, nous incite à réfléchir sur « la vérité » de la fiction et sur le rôle de l’écrivain. Puisant l’énergie créatrice au rêve et à l’inconscient, Hélène Cixous crée à partir des traces autobiographiques qui parcourent son œuvre un « miracle littéraire ». Les fragments personnels, tirés de notre histoire commune, prennent une valeur universelle. (shrink)

The under-representation of women on boards is a heavily discussed topic—not only in Germany. Based on critical mass theory and with the help of a hand-collected panel dataset of 151 listed German firms for the years 2000–2005, we explore whether the link between gender diversity and firm performance follows a U-shape. Controlling for reversed causality, we find evidence for gender diversity to at first negatively affect firm performance and—only after a “critical mass” of about 30 % women has been reached—to (...) be associated with higher firm performance than completely male boards. Given our sample firms, the critical mass of 30 % women translates into an absolute number of about three women on the board and hence supports recent studies on a corresponding “magic number” of women in the boardroom. (shrink)

The article proposes that climate change makes enduring colonial injustices and structures visible. It focuses on the imposition and dominance of colonial concepts of land and self-determination on Indigenous peoples in settler states. It argues that if the dominance of these colonial frameworks remains unaddressed, the progressing climate change will worsen other colonial injustices, too. Specifically, Indigenous self-determination capabilities will be increasingly undermined, and Indigenous peoples will experience the loss of what they understand as relevant land from within their own (...) ontologies of land. The article holds that even if settler states strive to repair colonial injustices, these efforts will be unsuccessful if climate change occurs and decolonization is pursued within the framework of a settler colonial ontology of land. Therefore, the article suggests, decolonization of the ontologies of land and concepts of self-determination is a precondition for a just response to climate change. (shrink)

This article will investigate Rawls's claim that his theory is Kantian in origin. In drawing on the Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, I will show that Rawls's claim to be Kantian cannot be conclusively explained and assessed without the Lectures. An investigation of the Lectures shows that Rawls forces onto Kant's theory a Rawlsian interpretation which crucially alters Kant's theory. So far the secondary literature has neglected to subject Rawls's Lectures to detailed philosophical scrutiny. This article aims to (...) fill this gap in the literature on Rawls's Kantianism. I will identify three points in Rawls's interpretation of Kant (need for CI-procedure, willing condition, true human needs) which are questionable. I argue that the similarities of Rawls's theory to Kant are due to these (mis)interpretations, which makes Rawls's claim to be Kantian ultimately not legitimate. (shrink)

Kerstin Thomas revaluates the famous dispute between Martin Heidegger, Meyer Schapiro, and Jacques Derrida, concerning a painting of shoes by Vincent Van Gogh. The starting point for this dispute was the description and analysis of things and artworks developed in his essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art”. In discussing Heidegger’s account, the art historian Meyer Schapiro’s main point of critique concerned Heidegger’s claim that the artwork reveals the truth of equipment in depicting shoes of a peasant woman (...) and thereby showing her world. Schapiro sees a striking paradox in Heidegger’s claim for truth, based on a specific object in a specific artwork while at the same time following a rather metaphysical idea of the artwork. Kerstin Thomas proposes an interpretation, which exceeds the common confrontation of philosophy versus art history by focussing on the respective notion of facticity at stake in the theoretical accounts of both thinkers. Schapiro accuses Heidegger of a lack of concreteness, which he sees as the basis for every truth claim on objects. Thomas understands Schapiro’s objections as motivated by this demand for a facticity, which not only includes the work of art, but also investigator in his concrete historical perspective. Truth claims under such conditions of facticity are always relative to historical knowledge, and open to critical intervention and therefore necessarily contingent. Following Thomas, Schapiro’s critique shows that despite his intention of giving the work of art back its autonomy, Heidegger could be accused of achieving quite the opposite: through the abstraction of the concrete, the factual, and the given to the type, he actually sets the self and the realm of knowledge of the creator as absolute and not the object of his knowledge. Instead, she argues for a revaluation of Schapiro’s position with recognition of the arbitrariness of the artwork, by introducing the notion of factuality as formulated by Quentin Meillassoux. Understood as exchange between artist and object in its concrete material quality as well as with the beholder, the truth of painting could only be shown as radically contingent. Thomas argues that the critical intervention of Derrida who discusses both positions anew is exactly motivated by a recognition of the contingent character of object, artwork and interpretation. His deconstructive analysis can be understood as recognition of the dynamic character of things and hence this could be shown with Meillassoux to be exactly its character of facticity – or factuality. (shrink)

It has been proposed that the design of robots might benefit from interactions that are similar to caregiver–child interactions, which is tailored to children’s respective capacities to a high degree. However, so far little is known about how people adapt their tutoring behaviour to robots and whether robots can evoke input that is similar to child-directed interaction. The paper presents detailed analyses of speakers’ linguistic behaviour and non-linguistic behaviour, such as action demonstration, in two comparable situations: In one experiment, parents (...) described and explained to their nonverbal infants the use of certain everyday objects; in the other experiment, participants tutored a simulated robot on the same objects. The results, which show considerable differences between the two situations on almost all measures, are discussed in the light of the computer-as-social-actor paradigm and the register hypothesis. Keywords: child-directed speech ; motherese; robotese; motionese; register theory; social communication; human–robot interaction ; computers-as-social-actors; mindless transfer. (shrink)

We're in an era of ever increasing attention to animal rights, and activism around the issue is growing more widespread and prominent. In this volume, Kerstin Jacobsson and Jonas Lindblom use the animal rights movement in Sweden to offer the first analysis of social movements through the lens of Emile Durkheim's sociology of morality. By positing social movements as essentially a moral phenomenon--and morality itself as a social fact--the book complements more structural, cultural, or strategic action-based approaches, even as (...) it also demonstrates the continuing value of classical sociological approaches to understanding contemporary society. (shrink)

Advocates for re-localizing food systems often encourage consumers to support local farmers and strengthen local food economies. Yet, local food systems hinge not only on consumers’ willingness to buy local food but also on whether farmers have the social support networks to address diverse challenges during food production and distribution. This study characterizes the challenges and support systems of farmers selling to local markets in Québec, Canada, across multiple growing seasons using a mixed-methods research design. We sent an online questionnaire (...) to 1046 farmers and conducted follow-up interviews with 15 of the 133 respondents. Our findings show that farmers relied on an average of four support actor groups, particularly employees, customers, and other farmers. Actors played distinct roles in terms of the importance, frequency, and formality of interactions, providing immediate and long-term support through formal and informal relationships across multiple spatial scales (farm, local community, and regional/international). Our thematic analysis showed that support actors helped farmers in four key domains: (1) Knowledge sharing and emotional support; (2) Labour and workforce; (3) Material and financial aid; and (4) Consumer education and business promotion. Farmer associations provided resources to tackle various challenges, acting as bridges across multiple support actor groups. Yet, our results suggest that political desires to encourage local food systems are in some cases poorly matched with resources to address specific types of challenges farmers face. Specifically, overlooking the role of diverse social support actors in helping farmers build food production and distribution capacity could undermine efforts to foster localization. (shrink)

The article analyses the compulsory care of drug misusers in Sweden. An historical analysis of this field of work as a part of the Swedish welfare state highlights historically changing legislations, institutions, understandings and practices. Following Foucault, it is argued that it is impossible to distinguish between power and care and that confusion about coercive care is a result of not acknowledging power. Empirical studies of current social work point to the significance of different institutional settings. The author's study of (...) the Swedish probation service shows that social workers and clients may adopt different positions in relation to each other and that their experiences of the practice of social work depend on the congruence or disparity between these positions. The problematic role of motivation in coercive care is highlighted. While some scholars claim that motivation is not possible in coercive institutions, the author relates motivation to the caring power arguing that social work is always aimed at normality and that care is exercised to achieve normality. The promise of an improved life situation may make people in need of help adapt to the demands of the helper, and the caring power can be seen as a way to provide help for individuals who do not realize that they are in need of care. (shrink)

This essay focuses on Günther Anders’s engagement with (political) poetry. I draw on published material and unpublished source texts from the Anders Nachlass to track how Anders arrives at his own writing style and mode of address through his sustained engagement with poetry. Anders’s philosophical prose and exoteric use of language is shaped by multifaceted reflections on (political) poetry and by the tension between ‘political poetry’ and ‘lyrical action’. I first elaborate on Anders's reading of Brecht in the early 1930s, (...) and then turn to the poetry and reflections on poetics that were written during his long exile in the US (1936–50). It is from this basis that I consider Anders’s categorical and programmatic turn away from poetry from the mid-1940s onwards. What emerges from my discussion is that engagements with literature, and with poetry in particular, were not a marginal activity for Anders but reflect a broad, life-long interest in (predominantly) classical and contemporary poetry, resulting in reflections on poetics and his own extensive poetic praxis. (shrink)

Within Western European countries the number of women and girls already genitally mutilated or at risk, is rising due to increasing rates of migration of Africans. The article compares legislative and ethical practices within the medical profession concerning female genital mutilation (FGM) in these countries. There are considerable differences in the number of affected women and in legislation and guidelines. For example, in France, Great Britain and Austria FGM is included in the criminal code as elements of crime, whereas in (...) Germany and Switzerland FGM is brought to trial as bodily injury. So far trials only in France and Switzerland in connection with FGM resulted in convictions. France and Great Britain as former Colonial countries serve as an example of countries with a comparably great number of African immigrants. These countries have the best possibilities to intervene preventatively, due to legislation and detailed medical guidelines. For instance, an obligation exists in France to inform administrative and medical authorities if FGM is suspected. FGM so far is not explicitly part of the curriculum for medical training in any of the examined countries. (shrink)

This article will investigate Rawls's claim that his theory is Kantian in origin. In drawing on the Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, I will show that Rawls's claim to be Kantian cannot be conclusively explained and assessed without the Lectures. An investigation of the Lectures shows that Rawls forces onto Kant's theory a Rawlsian interpretation which crucially alters Kant's theory. So far the secondary literature has neglected to subject Rawls's Lectures to detailed philosophical scrutiny. This article aims to (...) fill this gap in the literature on Rawls's Kantianism. I will identify three points in Rawls's interpretation of Kant which are questionable. I argue that the similarities of Rawls's theory to Kant are due to these interpretations, which makes Rawls's claim to be Kantian ultimately not legitimate. (shrink)

More so than in the past, the US is now embracing the logic of preventive force: using military force to counter potential threats around the globe before they have fully materialized. While popular with individuals who seek to avoid too many “boots on the ground,” preventive force is controversial because of its potential for unnecessary collateral damage. Who decides what threats are ‘imminent’? Is there an international legal basis to kill or harm individuals who have a connection to that threat? (...) Do the benefits of preventive force justify the costs? And, perhaps most importantly, is the US setting a dangerous international precedent? In Preventive Force, editors Kerstin Fisk and Jennifer Ramos bring together legal scholars, political scientists, international relations scholars, and prominent defense specialists to examine these questions, whether in the context of full-scale preventive war or preventive drone strikes. In particular, the volume highlights preventive drones strikes, as they mark a complete transformation of how the US understands international norms regarding the use of force, and could potentially lead to a ‘slippery slope’ for the US and other nations in terms of engaging in preventive warfare as a matter of course. A comprehensive resource that speaks to the contours of preventive force as a security strategy as well as to the practical, legal, and ethical considerations of its implementation, Preventive Force is a useful guide for political scientists, international relations scholars, and policymakers who seek a thorough and current overview of this essential topic. (shrink)

Breast reconstruction is an everyday, apparently nonviolent, even benevolent, remaking of the normal, and the reasons for why reconstruction is motivated and legitimate are uncontroversial and widely accepted. In this article the author will, through Donna Haraway's way of conceptualizing discourses, analyze what she calls “stories without significance.” The author has mapped the stories and interpretations of women undergoing reconstruction, stories that are not becoming part of the monovocal discourse of breast reconstruction. Thus, she focuses on the things said that (...) are not assigned significance, the silences and impossibilities. The article is also an effort to account for some of the invisible work that goes into the process of breast reconstruction in dialogue with the feminist field of science and technology studies. This to explore the making of the normal in a medical practice and reflect on how modest interventions could be made. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron introduced the notion of rights supersession into the philosophical discussion about restitutive justice in cases of historic injustices. He refers to land claims by indigenous peoples as a real-world example and as an application of his theory of rights supersession. He implies that the changes that have taken place in settler states since the first years of colonialism are the kind of changes that lead to a supersession of land rights. The article proposes to unbundle property rights into (...) rights of benefit, control, use, and access and to distinguish between different forms of attachment. This strategy allows for a third option of restitution and supersession, namely partial restitution. Partial restitution grants current land holders those rights that they need to satisfy their attachments and basic distributive justice claims. At the same time, rights that are not needed for either purpose will revert back to indigenous peoples as the original owners. The article argues that the notion of partial restitution allows for far more extensive land rights than a less nuanced application of the supersession thesis. (shrink)

The visual behaviour of consumers buying products in a supermarket was measured and used to analyse the stages of their decision process. Traditionally metrics used to trace decision-making processes are difficult to use in natural environments that often contain many options and unstructured information. Unlike previous attempts in this direction, our methodology reveals differences between a decision-making task and a search task. In particular the second stage of a decision task contains more re-dwells than the second stage of a comparable (...) search task. This study addresses the growing concern of taking eye movement research from the laboratory into the ‘real-world’, so findings can be better generalised to natural situations. (shrink)

In this article, I address the question whether or not robots should be social actors and suggest that we do not have much choice but to construe collaborative robots as social actors. Social cues, including emotional displays, serve coordination functions in human interaction and therefore have to be used, even by robots, in order for long-term collaboration to succeed. While robots lack the experiential basis of emotional display, also in human interaction much emotional expression is part of conventional social practice; (...) if robots are to participate in such social practices, they need to produce such signals as well. I conclude that if we aim to share our social spaces with robots, they better be social actors, which may even include the display of emotions. This finding is of empirical as well as philosophical relevance because it shifts the ethical discussion away from the question, how social collaborative robots should be, to the question, what kinds of human-robot collaborations we want. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the development of robot use cases in an elderly care facility in the context of exploring the method of Integrative Social Robotics when used on top of a user-centered design approach. Integrative Social Robotics is a new proposal for how to generate responsible, i.e. culturally and ethically sustainable, social robotics applications. Starting point for the discussion are the five principles that characterize an ISR approach, which are discussed in application to the three use cases for (...) robot support in a Danish elderly care facility developed within the smooth project. The discussion by an interdisciplinary design team explores what attention to the five principles of ISR can offer for use case development. We report on the consequences of this short-time exposure to the basic ideas of ISR for use case development and discuss the value of approaching robot development from an ISR perspective. (shrink)

It has been proposed that the design of robots might benefit from interactions that are similar to caregiver–child interactions, which is tailored to children’s respective capacities to a high degree. However, so far little is known about how people adapt their tutoring behaviour to robots and whether robots can evoke input that is similar to child-directed interaction. The paper presents detailed analyses of speakers’ linguistic behaviour and non-linguistic behaviour, such as action demonstration, in two comparable situations: In one experiment, parents (...) described and explained to their nonverbal infants the use of certain everyday objects; in the other experiment, participants tutored a simulated robot on the same objects. The results, which show considerable differences between the two situations on almost all measures, are discussed in the light of the computer-as-social-actor paradigm and the register hypothesis. Keywords: child-directed speech ; motherese; robotese; motionese; register theory; social communication; human–robot interaction ; computers-as-social-actors; mindless transfer. (shrink)

The anticipated social capabilities of robots may allow them to serve in authority roles as part of human-machine teams. To date, it is unclear if, and to what extent, human team members will comply with requests from their robotic teammates, and how such compliance compares to requests from human teammates. This research examined how the human-likeness and physical embodiment of a robot affect compliance to a robot's request to perseverate utilizing a novel task paradigm. Across a set of two studies, (...) participants performed a visual search task while receiving ambiguous performance feedback. Compliance was evaluated when the participant requested to stop the task and the coach urged the participant to keep practicing multiple times. In the first study, the coach was either physically co-located with the participant or located remotely via a live-video. Coach type varied in human-likeness and included either a real human, a Nao robot, or a modified Roomba robot. The second study expanded on the first by including a Baxter robot as a coach and replicated the findings in a different sample population with a strict chain of command culture. Results from both studies showed that participants comply with the requests of a robot for up to 11 min. Compliance is less than to a human and embodiment and human-likeness on had weak effects on compliance. (shrink)