Design of experiments with children and a robotic companion. Engineering Awareness TM

Transcription

1 Design of experiments with children and a robotic companion

2 Introduction: Who we are Table of content The context: The Aliz-e project Children with Diabetes (Demonstration with Nao) Experiments Experimental methodology Examples of ongoing experiments

3 ABOUT US

4 San Raffaele Biomedical Science Park One of Europe s largest Science Parks entirely devoted to biomedical and biotechnology research. It includes: The biggest Italian private hospital The first ranking Italian biomedical research institute with 500 scientists A private university (Università Vita-Salute) 7 biotech and pharmaceutical companies on site A company fully dedicated to diagnostics (Laboraf) 2 research funding charities

5 e-services for Life & Health Unit Mission, Vision, Belief The mission is to demonstrate the ethical, scientific, economical and technological feasibility of innovative personalized services, named e-services for Life and Health The vision is that e-services for Life and Health timely delivers the Individual with personalized and context-specific information, that improve the understanding of the personal (physical and mental) and social impact of daily behaviors The belief is that personal awareness and education are the drivers that motivate the Individual to follow a healthier and more eco-sustainable life

6 Why thinking about robotics? Bill Gates's dream, more than 30 years ago: A computer in every home Observers believe that by 2025 we could have: A robot in every home?

7 THE ALIZ-E PROJECT

8 Aliz-e Project The project will develop the theory and practice behind embodied cognitive robots capable of maintaining believable multi-modal and any-depth affective interactions with a young user over an extended and possibly discontinuous period of time.

9 Threads (1) Human-robot interaction from the range of minutes to the range of days. (Cynthia Breazeal) (IROMEC FP6) (Takayuki Kanda) Robotic companions in child-robot interaction. Different from adult-robot interaction, more promising applications. Robust any-depth interaction. Robustness against low-quality perception and interpretation. Long-term memory and self-sustained long-term interaction. Key to long-term interaction is having a personalised adaptive memory storing experiences and interaction episodes.

10 Threads (2) Out of the lab into the real world: therapeutic settings, yearly evaluation with end users. Evaluation in paediatrics department of Hospital San Raffaele. Users will be 7 to 12-year old diabetic and obese patients. Analysis and synthesis of emotion and affect in humanrobot interaction. Affect has mostly been experimentally studied in short-term HRI. Natural Language Interaction Which includes child speech recognition. Pervasive learning and adaptation. Learning experiences will be unstructured. Learning will rely on an array of different approaches. Cloud computing as computational resource on autonomous systems. Extending embedded computational power by using networked processing.

11 Consortium Imperial College London Adaptive behaviour TNO - Delft User modelling University of Hertfordshire Affective interaction University of Plymouth Long-term memory Gostai - Paris URBI and Cloud computing Vrije Universiteit Brussel A&V perception and production DFKI - Saarbrücken Natural language CNR - Padova Speech recognition and production Hospital San Raffaele Evaluation site

12 The robots will use a distributed model of long-term memory, which acts as a switch board for other cognitive modalities. Aliz-e: science and technology Verbal interaction aimed at long-term interaction will be strongly coupled with nonverbal interaction. The robots will rely on adaptive and sustainable non-verbal interaction, taking an embodied perspective to affective interaction. Evaluation will involve young users outside a lab environment. The main evaluation site will be the Hospital San Raffaele in Milan, Italy. The user and task modelling will be adaptive: the robot adapts its behaviour to different user profiles with user-specific strategies to achieve a goal. The integration of cognitive components will be based on cloud computing for embedded systems.

13 Aldebaran Nao platform Aldebaran Nao humanoid robot. 58cm, 4.3kg, 25 DOF. Sensors and actuators: 2 speakers, 4 microphones, 2 cameras, gyro, accelerometer, range sensors (2 IR, 2 sonar). AMD GEODE 500Mhz, 256Mb, 1Gb flash. Ethernet and WiFi connectivity. Why? Project hits the ground running: little or no hardware development. European product. Common evaluation platform. Low cost w.r.t. other robotic platforms Positive response from target group.

14 Aldebaran Nao platform Now a small demo of what Nao can do!!

15 Aliz-e application scenario Nao as a long term robotic companion for hospitalized children

16 Project Roadmap Guiding Aliz-e (Year 1) Listening Aliz-e (Year 2) Discussing Aliz-e (Year 3) Long-term Aliz-e (Year 4)

17 Diabetes Diabetes is a metabolism disorder. Metabolism refers to the way our bodies use digested food for energy and growth. Most of what we eat is broken down into glucose which is the principal source of fuel for our bodies. There are two types of Diabetes: Diabetes Type 1 - You produce no insulin at all. Diabetes Type 2 - You don't produce enough insulin, or your insulin is not working properly. Diabetes has become an alarming global problem in recent years. According to the International Diabetes Foundation (IDF), the number of people diagnosed with diabetes in the last twenty years has risen from 30 million to over 246 million, or approximately 7.3 % of the world population, with North America have the highest percentage.

18 Facts and Figures about Diabetes Currently there are over 260 million people worldwide with diabetes. At the currently rate, by 2025 more than 418 million people will be diagnosed with diabetes. 65,000 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed each year. 80 years after the discovery of insulin, there are still many people around the world who either cannot access insulin on a regular basis or at all. Diabetes can damage the many organs including tissue of kidneys, peripheral nerves, vascular tree, eyes (causing blindness) and be the cause of loss of limbs in the lower extremities due to poor circulation. Type 2 diabetes is preventable in approximately 80% of all cases, making prevention a high priority in fighting against worldwide diabetes. More than half of all people who are diabetic don't even know they have diabetes.

19 Typical day in Hospital for Diabetic patients Daily schedule h 08:00 glycemia h 08:45 breakfast + insulin h 10:30 glycemia h glycemia + lunch + insulin h 16:00 glycemia h 19:00 glycemia + dinner + insulin h 21:00 glycemia h 22:00 insulin (for the night) Sometimes also night glycemia measurements are needed Other glycemia measurements are needed depending on how the child feels

20 Diabetes daily challenge Relevant also for obese, overweight and healthy children Diet management Sugars intake Physical activity management Sugars consumption Sugars digestion Insuline management

21 From Animal Assisted Therapy to Robot Assisted Therapy Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is a type of therapy that involves animals as a form of treatment. The goal of AAT is to improve a patient s social, emotional, or cognitive functioning. Robot could do the same, where a having a real animal might be an issue! An example: The PARO robot imitates animal behavior, interacts with human beings and responds to light, sound, temperature, touch and posture.

22 EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY

23 From theory to practice Science starts from theories (hypothesis) Theory must be supported by facts (empirical data) Data must be produced with experiments

24 Experiment Procedure (1/2) Generate hypothesis (from literature review or from preliminary studies) Identify the dependent variables and select/design tools to measure how they vary Identify the independent variables, and make sure that you have a way to control them (i.e., make them change as needed) Construct a model and make a prediction (usually, this is the relation between dependent and independent variables)

25 Experiment Procedure (2/2) Execute the experiment! Execute the data analysis: Verify the internal coherence of the tools used (questionnaires, etc.), with standard statistic tools (e.g., Cronbach alpha) If the tool used is not reliable, conclusions are not valid!!! Verify if data are acceptable or are the result of a random phenomenon. Usually we use t-statistic, z-statistic, F-statistic (ANOVA), etc., with a confidence of 95% (max alpha accepted = 5%) If the data are not reliable, conclusions are not acceptable! If the data are acceptable and coherent, I can derive conclusions from the results I can conclude if the intervention had an effect or it didn t

26 Possible tools are: Questionnaires Interviews/surveys Focus groups Measurements tools Video/audio analysis (usually called video coding, or video annotation) Questionnaires: It is better to reuse already validated questionnaires or at least used in other experiments (for comparison) Should have high reliability (e.g., Cronbach alpha) and internal consistency

27 Video coding It is the most frequent technique for Human-Robotic Interaction studies Video coding requires the definition of a coding schema, which is a set of labels and attributes to be annotated in a video The coding schema must be well written and documented Execution: Multiple coders should participate, better if are not aware of the goal of the study (i.e., naïve coders ) Data from coders must be analyzed and have an agreement (K of Cohen) which is usually higher than 80% (less usually means bad coding schema)

28 Example for video coding Software: ANVIL -

29 Last year experiments - Summary 20 children from 7 to 12 years old (most of which with Diabetes) Two experimental conditions: familiar vs non-familiar robot Three games to test the strategy: Dance game Imitation game Quiz game

30 Last year experiments - Methodology Goal of the project: Create a long term companion Problem: Once the novelty effect disappear, child might lose interest in the robot (as happens with their toys) We need strategies to involve the children in multiple interaction, over an extended period of time Research hypothesis: A robot displaying familiarity can affect the cooperation and participation of the child during the discussion. This differences is sustained over multiple interactions.

31 Last year experiments Results of VideoCoding

32 EXAMPLES OF EXPERIMENTS

33 Example 1 - Summer Camp Summary: 60 diabetics children at a summer camp in August 2012 for 10 days. Group interactions with Nao after dinner, and individual interactions for 33 children playing a quiz game either with virtual or real robot. Goal: study the differences between the virtual and the real robot during the interaction Dependent variables: Knowledge increase, children engagement, robot perception Independent variables: Virtual or real robot Tools: video coding, questionnaires, pre/postknowledge test

34 Example 1 - Summer Camp

35 Example 2 - Museum Summary: 22 families in daily events, participating to Focus Groups at the Museum of Science and Technology Goal: Elicit the robot s requirements to properly support families with diabetic children Study emergence of turn-taking with the use of an interactive display (called: Sandtray) together with the robot Tools: Focus groups with adults Focus groups with children Video coding for the interactive touchscreen interactions

36 Example 2 - Museum

37 Example 3 - Arosio Summary: 100 children, in primary schools in Arosio (CO), following lessons with the Robot, committing toward a personal goal and playing with the robot in a one-to-one interaction Goal: Study how the robot could motivate children toward healthier lifestyles (increase the consumption of fruit and vegetables) Dependent variables: Knowledge increase, children s motivation, children s compliance with the goal. Independent variables: 2x2 condition with/without the use of verbal or bodily cues, plus a control group Tools: food log, questionnaires, motivational scale

38 Example 3 - Arosio

39 Example 4 Child in rehabilitation from stroke Summary: an 8 years old child had a cerebral stroke, losing the mobility of his right foot, right hand and part of his face. He was depressed and not cooperating much with the doctors during the rehabilitation. Psychologists suggested to try with Nao Goal: Engage the child, motivate him, distract him, support him to participate to the rehabilitation. Tools: Interviews to physiotherapist, psychologists, parents and doctors.

40 Example 4 Child in rehabilitation from stroke

41 Example 5 - Giocampus Summary: 340 children in primary schools of Parma, participating to the nutritional program Giocampus (organized by Barilla), played with the robot. Goal: Evaluate the effect of the robot on children s motivation and attention. Dependent variables: knowledge gain, children s perception of the robot, children s compliance Independent variables: Use of the robot 0, 1 or 2 times. The control group had no intervention at all, the 1 st group had only intervention with human, the 2 nd had intervention with the robot, the 3 rd group had the intervention with the robot and the robot coming back to verify the achievements. Tools: Questionnaires

42 Example 5 - Giocampus