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Experiencing the flow: design issues in human-robot interaction

Published: 12 October 2005 Publication History

Abstract

The experience of "emotional tuning" with artefacts that are not merely static (a teapot), nor merely reactive (a VCR), but that are autonomous, physical objects with decision-making abilities, pro-active, dynamic and designed with the general purpose of engaging users in social interaction, is an intriguing issue for interaction design.This paper is a reflection about the compelling yet difficult nature of interaction dynamics among humans and robots, and a special category among them: robots capable of mediating social interaction.Supporting such experiences means providing intensive embedding in the situation, motivating the users through a sense of engagement, similarly to what Csikszentmihalyi (1990) defines "optimal flow", the absolute absorption in the activity where the experience is guided by the personal feeling of the external worlds. The objective of our investigation is to analyze and try to understand if and when robotic devices can engage humans in activities likely to result in "being in the flow". We will try to analyze the different dimensions of flow in relation to different kinds of robotic devices: the seal robot Paro, used both for company and for therapeutic activities, the Intelligent Building Blocks, a robotic construction kit often used in educational activities, LEGO Mindstorms, the popular construction kit developed by LEGO.The perspective that will be presented is connected to the quality of interaction and to the personal significance that every human being creates by getting involved and involving its own life experience in the interaction with the robot.

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  1. Experiencing the flow: design issues in human-robot interaction

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      cover image ACM Other conferences
      sOc-EUSAI '05: Proceedings of the 2005 joint conference on Smart objects and ambient intelligence: innovative context-aware services: usages and technologies
      October 2005
      316 pages
      ISBN:1595933042
      DOI:10.1145/1107548
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      New York, NY, United States

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      Published: 12 October 2005

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      sOc-EUSAI05: Smart Objects & Ambient Intelligence
      October 12 - 14, 2005
      Grenoble, France

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      • (2024)Role-Playing with Robot Characters: Increasing User Engagement through Narrative and Gameplay AgencyProceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/3610977.3634941(522-532)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2024
      • (2023)Effects of Human-Swarm Interaction on Subjective Time PerceptionProceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/3568162.3578626(456-465)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2023
      • (2018)A theoretical perspective on social agencyAI & Society10.1007/s00146-009-0189-224:2(165-171)Online publication date: 25-Dec-2018
      • (2011)Design a partner robot with emotions in the mixed reality learning environmentProceedings of the 6th international conference on E-learning and games, edutainment technologies10.5555/2040452.2040550(457-463)Online publication date: 7-Sep-2011
      • (2011)A Survey on the use of Emotions, Mood, and Personality in Ambient Intelligence and Smart EnvironmentsHandbook of Research on Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments10.4018/978-1-61692-857-5.ch006(88-107)Online publication date: 2011
      • (2011)Design a Partner Robot with Emotions in the Mixed Reality Learning EnvironmentEdutainment Technologies. Educational Games and Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Applications10.1007/978-3-642-23456-9_82(457-463)Online publication date: 2011
      • (2008)Developing scenarios for robot assisted playRO-MAN 2008 - The 17th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication10.1109/ROMAN.2008.4600663(180-186)Online publication date: Aug-2008
      • (2007)Human Touching Behavior Recognition Based on Neural NetworksProceedings of the 4th international symposium on Neural Networks: Part II--Advances in Neural Networks10.1007/978-3-540-72393-6_87(730-739)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2007
      • (2006)A Robot as a Teaching Assistant in an English ClassSixth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT'06)10.1109/ICALT.2006.1652373(87-91)Online publication date: 2006

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