Papers by Barbara Kuhnert
Cognitive Science, 2017
Virtual agents have quietly entered our life in diverse everyday domains. Human-Agent-Interaction... more Virtual agents have quietly entered our life in diverse everyday domains. Human-Agent-Interaction can evoke any reaction, from complete rejection to great interest. But do humans implicitly regard virtual agents as pure machines, or beings on an anthropomorphic level? We asked participants to train an erroneous virtual agent on a cognitive task and to reward or punish it. The agent showed human-like emotional facial reactions for the experimental but not for the control group. We expected participants from the experimental group to give less harmful reinforcement and show more hesitation before punishing. Additionally, we hypothesised that participants with higher empathy show more compassion towards the agent and therefore would give more positive reinforcement and feel worse when punishing. The results indicate that the agent’s expression of emotionality is not the relevant factor for showing compassion towards it. Conversely, human empathy seems to be an important factor causing ...
Moral HRI is investigating humans’ perception and reasoning regarding robots’ responses to moral ... more Moral HRI is investigating humans’ perception and reasoning regarding robots’ responses to moral dilemmas. Understanding moral dilemmas as cases of tragedy, we identify creative responses as an alternative to responses based on ethical principles such as deontology or utilitarianism. We propose a computational procedure based on AI planning that can generate such responses. We report results from an exploratory study to obtain a preliminary understanding of how the character of creative ethical reasoning robots is perceived compared to the more commonly discussed utilitarian and deontological robots.
Cognitive Science, 2017
We propose causal agency models for representing and reasoning about ethical dilemmas. We find th... more We propose causal agency models for representing and reasoning about ethical dilemmas. We find that ethical dilemmas, although they appear similar on the surface, differ in their formal structure. Based on their structural properties, as identified by the causal agency models, we cluster a set of dilemmas in Type 1 and Type 2 dilemmas. We observe that for Type 1 dilemmas but not for Type 2 dilemmas a utilitarian action does not dominate the possibility of refraining from action thereby constituting a conflict. Hence, we hypothesize, based on the model, that Type 1 dilemmas are perceived as more difficult than Type 2 dilemmas by human reasoners. A behavioral study where participants rated the difficulty of dilemmas supports the models’ predictions.
Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose... more Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
The gap between human's attitude towards robots in general and human's expectation of an ideal everyday life robot
2017 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), 2017
Acceptance, trust and a successful deployment of robots in human's everyday life depends both... more Acceptance, trust and a successful deployment of robots in human's everyday life depends both on technical implementation and on psychological aspects. The current work identifies essential features and characteristics that have the potential to increase the acceptance of robots, reduce prejudices and improve the development of appropriate and suitable robots with target-group specific features and characteristics. We present the first part of a major research project that aims to develop a valid and reliable toolkit for an encompassing measurement of human's attitude towards robots. By means of the Semantic Differential Scale a comparison of human's attitude towards robots in general and human's expectation of an ideal, personal everyday life robot has been performed. Results reveal major differences between these two concepts and the demand of robots adapted to human's requirements.
Errare humanum est: Erroneous robots in human-robot interaction
2016 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), 2016
Perfect memory, strong reasoning abilities and flawless performance are typical cognitive traits ... more Perfect memory, strong reasoning abilities and flawless performance are typical cognitive traits associated with robots. In contrast, forgetting and erroneous reasoning are typical cognitive patterns of humans. This discrepancy may fundamentally affect the way how robots and humans interact and collaborate together and is today still little explored. In this paper, we investigate the effect of differences between erroneous and perfect robots in a competitive scenario in which humans and robots solve reasoning tasks and memorize numbers. Participants are randomly assigned to one of two groups: in the first group they interact with a perfect, flawless robot, while in the second, they interact with a human-like robot with occasional errors and imperfect memorizing abilities. Participants rate attitude, sympathy, and attributes of the robot in a questionnaire and we measure their task performance. The results show that the erroneous robot triggered more positive emotions but lead to a lower human performance than the perfect one. Effects of both conditions on the group of students with and without technical background are reported.
Laufbahnf�rderung durch ein Unterst�tzungsnetzwerk
Laufbahnförderung durch ein Unterstützungsnetzwerk
Zeitschrift für Personalpsychologie, 2003
Zusammenfassung. Die Netzwerkkonzeption des Mentoring postuliert, dass eine gelungene berufliche ... more Zusammenfassung. Die Netzwerkkonzeption des Mentoring postuliert, dass eine gelungene berufliche Karriere auch für die möglich ist, die keinen Mentor finden. Das Kennzeichnende von Mentor-Protegé-Beziehungen ist die Bündelung von unterstützenden psychosozialen und karriereförderlichen Aspekten in einer einzelnen zwischenmenschlichen Beziehung. Psychosoziale und karriereförderliche Unterstützung kann jedoch auch durch unterschiedliche Personen gewährt werden. Entscheidend, so die These, sei nicht die Quelle, sondern die Summe der Laufbahnunterstützung, die eine Person insgesamt erfährt. An der Studie beteiligten sich 237 berufstätige Personen. Es zeigte sich, dass Personen mit Mentoren in Bezug auf einzelne Laufbahnunterstützungsbeziehungen höhere Unterstützungswerte hatten. Allerdings wirkten sich laufbahnunterstützende Hilfestellungen von fördernden Personen sowohl einzeln als auch in der Summe der verschiedenen unterstützenden Beziehungen auch über Mentor-Protegé-Beziehungen hinau...
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Papers by Barbara Kuhnert