{"64819":{"#nid":"64819","#data":{"type":"news","title":"How Can Robots Get Our Attention?","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGetting someone\u2019s attention can be easy with a loud noise or\na shout, but what if the situation calls for a little more tact? How can a\nrobot use subtle cues to attract a human\u2019s notice and tell when it has captured\nit? In a preliminary study, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have\nfound that they can program a robot to understand when it gains a human\u2019s\nattention and when it falls short. The research is being presented today at the\nHuman-Robot Interaction conference in Lausanne, Switzerland.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe primary focus was trying to give Simon, our robot, the\nability to understand when a human being seems to be reacting appropriately, or\nin some sense is interested now in a response with respect to Simon and to be\nable to do it using a visual medium, a camera,\u201d said Aaron Bobick, professor\nand chair of the School of Interactive Computing in Georgia Tech\u2019s College of\nComputing.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EUsing the socially expressive robot Simon, from Assistant Professor\nAndrea Thomaz\u2019s Socially Intelligent Machines lab, researchers wanted to see if\nthey could tell when he had successfully attracted the attention of a human who\nwas busily engaged in a task and when he had not.\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSimon would make some form of a gesture, or some form of an\naction when the user was present, and the computer vision task was to try to\ndetermine whether or not you had captured the attention of the human being,\u201d\nsaid Bobick.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EWith close to 80 percent accuracy Simon was able to tell,\nusing only his cameras as a guide, whether someone was paying attention to him\nor ignoring him. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe would like to bring robots into the human world. That\nmeans they have to engage with human beings, and human beings have an\nexpectation of being engaged in a way similar to the way other human beings\nwould engage with them,\u201d said Bobick.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOther human beings understand turn-taking. They understand\nthat if I make some indication, they\u2019ll turn and face someone when they want to\nengage with them and they won\u2019t when they don\u2019t want to engage with them. In\norder for these robots to work with us effectively, they have to obey these\nsame kinds of social conventions, which means they have to perceive the same\nthing humans perceive in determining how to abide by those conventions,\u201d he\nadded.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EResearchers plan to go further with their investigations\ninto how Simon can read communication cues by studying whether he can tell by a\nperson\u2019s gaze whether they are paying attention or using elements of language\nor other actions. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cPreviously people would have pre-defined notions of what\nthe user should do in a particular context and they would look for those,\u201d said\nBobick. \u201cThat only works when the person behaves exactly as expected. Our\napproach, which I think is the most novel element, is to use the user\u2019s current\nbehavior as the baseline and observe what changes.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe research team for this study consisted of Bobick, Thomaz,\ndoctoral student Jinhan Lee and undergraduate student Jeffrey Kiser. \u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found\nthat they can program a robot to understand when it gains a human\u2019s attention\nand when it falls short.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers have found that they can program a robot to understand when it gains a human\u2019s attention and when it falls short."}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2011-03-08 10:08:57","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:08:22","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-03-08T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2011-03-08T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"64817":{"id":"64817","type":"image","title":"How can robots get our attention? Simon photo","body":null,"created":"1449176765","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:06:05","changed":"1475894571","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:51","alt":"How can robots get our attention? Simon photo","file":{"fid":"192105","name":"11P1000-P43-005.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11P1000-P43-005_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11P1000-P43-005_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1490298,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/11P1000-P43-005_0.jpg?itok=fCqzzpFx"}}},"media_ids":["64817"],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"12286","name":"Aaron Bobick"},{"id":"11526","name":"Andrea Thomaz"},{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"4887","name":"GVU Center"},{"id":"11892","name":"RIM@GT"},{"id":"1356","name":"robot"},{"id":"166848","name":"School of Interactive Computing"},{"id":"168887","name":"simon"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDavid Terraso\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications and Marketing \u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-385-2966\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}