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Minimal Human Design Approach for sonzai-kan Media: Investigation of a Feeling of Human Presence

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Abstract

Even though human-like robotic media give the feeling of being with others and positively affect our physical and mental health, scant research has addressed how much information about a person should be reproduced to enhance the feeling of a human presence. We call this feeling sonzai-kan, which is a Japanese phrase that means the feeling of a presence. We propose a minimal design approach for exploring the requirements to enhance this feeling and hypothesize that it is enhanced if information is presented from at least two different modalities. In this approach, the exploration is conducted by designing sonzai-kan media through exploratory research with the media, their evaluations, and the development of their systems. In this paper, we give an overview of our current work with Telenoid, a teleoperated android designed with our approach, to illustrate how we explore the requirements and how such media impact our quality of life. We discuss the potential advantages of our approach for forging positive social relationships and designing an autonomous agent with minimal cognitive architecture.

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Notes

  1. Since there is no precise definition of a “cue”, we follow the definition in [14]: a cue is defined as any sensory information that gives rise to a sensory estimate.

  2. Telenoid is product name. As of 2013, there are two versions: Telenoid R1 and R2.

  3. Hardware information is about Telenoid R2, which is lighter and smaller than Telenoid R1.

  4. Telenoid R1 was also covered with silicon rubber.

  5. In this study, Telenoid R1 was used while Telenoid R2 was used in other studies.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the three anonymous reviewers. This work has been supported by JST CREST (Core Research of Evolutional Science and Technology) research promotion program “Creation of Human-Harmonized Information Technology for Convivial Society” Research Area.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratory, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Keihanna Science City, Kyoto, 619-0288, Japan

    Hidenobu Sumioka, Shuichi Nishio, Takashi Minato, Ryuji Yamazaki & Hiroshi Ishiguro

  2. Department of Systems Innovation, Osaka University Graduate School of Engineering Science, 1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka, 560-8531, Japan

    Hiroshi Ishiguro

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  1. Hidenobu Sumioka
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  2. Shuichi Nishio
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Correspondence to Hidenobu Sumioka.

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Sumioka, H., Nishio, S., Minato, T. et al. Minimal Human Design Approach for sonzai-kan Media: Investigation of a Feeling of Human Presence. Cogn Comput 6, 760–774 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-014-9270-3

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