http://mindhacks.com/2009/08/12/mercy-machines/ Neuroscience and psychology tricks to find out what's going on inside your brain. Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:24:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://mindhacks.com/2009/08/12/mercy-machines/#comment-5412 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:14:20 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/mercy-machines/#comment-5412 I think this picture of ‘old’ friends is quite accurate to the robot/child interaction… maybe its the future?
http://www.gearfuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/robot-friend.jpg

]]> http://mindhacks.com/2009/08/12/mercy-machines/#comment-5411 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:42:56 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/mercy-machines/#comment-5411 You might be interested to know that one of the few successful behavioural treatments for low-functioning autism has used robots:
Duquette et al., 2008 – Exploring the use of a mobile robot as an imitation agent with children with low-functioning autism.
Autonomous Robots 24(2), 147-157.
Abstract: Unpredictability and complexity of social interactions are important challenges for a low functioning autistic child. The objective of this research is to study how a mobile robot can, by appearing more predictable, appealing and simple than a human being, facilitate reciprocal interaction such as imitative play. By conducting an exploratory study involving four children, we found that forms of shared conventions such as imitation of body movements and of familiar actions are higher with two children paired with a human mediator, compared to two children paired with a robot mediator. However, the two children paired with the robot mediator demonstrated increased shared attention (visual contact, physical proximity) and imitate facial expressions (smile) more than the children paired with the human mediator.

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