Squeeze me: gently please

This paper presents the Squeeze Me, a research-through-design case that explores the emergence of empathic behavior between human and machine by sparking an expression-rich relation. The Squeeze Me is a squeezable device used to grab attention from a robot, providing ground for expressive values to be shared. The expressions exerted on the mediating device by the human are mapped to expressive behaviors of the robot in the modality of motion in forthcoming interaction. We propose a double-layered interaction paradigm in achieving natural and socially acceptable synthesis. Firstly, a direct mapping, inherently exhibiting a natural relationship. Secondly, an amplifying and reductive mapping to construct a personalizing relationship through vivid and lively interactions fed by the intentions of the robot as well as the user. The design case serves to explore consequences of a phenomenological approach on the constitution of empathy in the fields of human and robot interaction. With this work we intend to inspire design engineering to shift from representational and discrete to rich, continuous-sustained and other embodied mechanisms for interaction when targeting empathic behavior to emerge.

[1]  Stephan Wensveen,et al.  There is more in a single touch: mapping the continuous to the discrete , 2011, CHItaly.

[2]  Deana McDonagh,et al.  Empathic Design: User Experience in Product Design: I. Koskinen, K. Battarbee And T. MattelmäKi (Eds) , 2004 .

[3]  T. Bickmore.  Relational agents : effecting change through human-computer relationships , 2003 .

[4]  Ana Paiva,et al.  Caring for agents and agents that care: building empathic relations with synthetic agents , 2004, Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 2004. AAMAS 2004..

[5]  Adriana Tapus,et al.  Socially Assistive Robots: The Link between Personality, Empathy, Physiological Signals, and Task Performance , 2008, AAAI Spring Symposium: Emotion, Personality, and Social Behavior.

[6]  Paul Dourish,et al.  Where the action is , 2001 .

[7]  J. Gibson.  The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception , 1979 .

[8]  Colin Potts,et al.  Design of Everyday Things , 1988 .

[9]  Maurice Merleau-Ponty.  Phenomenology of Perception , 1964 .

[10]  Terry Winograd,et al.  Understanding computers and cognition , 1986 .

[11]  Caroline Hummels,et al.  The aesthetics of the impossible , 2007 .

[12]  Miguel Bruns Alonso,et al.  How to design for transformation of behavior through interactive materiality , 2012, NordiCHI.

[13]  Adriana Tapus,et al.  Emulating Empathy in Socially Assistive Robotics , 2007, AAAI Spring Symposium: Multidisciplinary Collaboration for Socially Assistive Robotics.

[14]  Daniel Fallman,et al.  In Romance with the Materials of Mobile Interaction : A Phenomenological Approach to the Design of Mobile Information Technology , 2003 .

[15]  Caroline Hummels,et al.  Rights through making: Wearing quality , 2009 .

[16]  Patrizia Marti,et al.  Perceiving While Being Perceived , 2022 .

[17]  Stephan Wensveen,et al.  Interaction frogger: a design framework to couple action and function through feedback and feedforward , 2004, DIS '04.

[18]  Maurice Merleau-Ponty,et al.  Phenomenology of perception , 2016 .