From Computational Emotional Models to HRI

Abstract

During the previous stage of our research we developed a computer simulation (called ‘The Panic Room’ or, more simply, ‘TPR’) dealing with synthetic emotions. The authors were developing the first steps towards an evolutionary machine, defining the key elements involved in the development of complex actions (that is, creating a physical intuitive ontology, from a bottom-up approach). After the successful initial results of TPR, the authors considered that it would be necessary to develop a new simulation (which the authors will call “TPR 2.0.”), more complex and with better visualisation characteristics. After this, the authors created a simulation on emotions evolution with genetic algorithms (Game Of Emotions, GOE) which results on the value of specific emotions into social domains were applied to HRI real robotic environments at Nishidalab (Japan), focused into the notions of empathy and proxemics. There the authors performed an experiment that involved humans from two different native-speaking cultures and one robot introduced as three different machines. The final HRI obtained data was analyzed under several research field perspectives: psychology, philosophy, robotic sciences and anthropology.