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In:Gaze in Human-Robot Communication
Edited by Frank Broz, Hagen Lehmann, Bilge Mutlu and Yukiko Nakano
[Benjamins Current Topics 81] 2015
► pp. 13–32

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Robots can be perceived as goal-oriented agents

Published online: 16 December 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.81.02sci
Understanding the goals of others is fundamental for any kind of interpersonal interaction and collaboration. From a neurocognitive perspective, intention understanding has been proposed to depend on an involvement of the observer’s motor system in the prediction of the observed actions (Nyström et al. 2011; Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia 2010; Southgate et al. 2009). An open question is if a similar understanding of the goal mediated by motor resonance can occur not only between humans, but also for humanoid robots. In this study we investigated whether goal-oriented robotic actions can induce motor resonance by measuring the appearance of anticipatory gaze shifts to the goal during action observation. Our results indicate a similar implicit processing of humans’ and robots’ actions and propose to use anticipatory gaze behaviour as a tool for the evaluation of human-robot interactions.
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Bisio, Ambra, Alessandra Sciutti, Francesco Nori, Giorgio Metta, Luciano Fadiga, Giulio Sandini, Thierry Pozzo & Alessio Avenanti
2014. Motor Contagion during Human-Human and Human-Robot Interaction. PLoS ONE 9:8 ► pp. e106172 ff. DOI logo

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