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Human-robot interaction research could benefit from knowing how various parameters of robotic eye movement control affect specific cognitive mechanisms of the user, such as attention or perception. In the present study, we systematically teased apart control parameters of Trajectory Time of robot eye movements (rTT) between two joint positions and Fixation Duration (rFD) on each of these positions of the iCub robot. We showed recordings of these behaviors to participants and asked them to rate each video on how human-like the robot’s behavior appeared. Additionally, we recorded participants’ eye movements to examine whether the different control parameters evoked different effects on cognition and attention. We found that slow but variable robot eye movements yielded relatively higher human-likeness ratings. On the other hand, the eye-tracking data suggest that the human range of rTT is most engaging and evoked spontaneous involvement in joint attention. The pattern observed in subjective ratings was paralleled only by one measure in the implicit objective metrics, namely the frequency of spontaneous attentional following. These findings provide significant clues for controller design to improve the interaction between humans and artificial agents.

Assessing mobility in daily life can provide significant insights into several clinical conditions, such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of wearable devices' performance in gait speed estimation and explore optimal device combinations for everyday use. Using data collected from smartphones, smartwatches, and smart shoes, we evaluated the individual capabilities of each device and explored their synergistic effects when combined, thereby accommodating the preferences and possibilities of individuals for wearing different types of devices. Our study involved 20 healthy subjects performing a modified Six-Minute Walking Test (6MWT) under various conditions. The results revealed only little performance differences among devices, with the combination of smartwatches and smart shoes exhibiting superior estimation accuracy. Particularly, smartwatches captured additional health-related information and demonstrated enhanced accuracy when paired with other devices. Surprisingly, wearing all devices concurrently did not yield optimal results, suggesting a potential redundancy in feature extraction. Feature importance analysis highlighted key variables contributing to gait speed estimation, providing valuable insights for model refinement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faces and bodies provide critical cues for social interaction and communication. Their structural encoding depends on configural processing, as suggested by the detrimental effect of stimulus inversion for both faces (i.e., face inversion effect - FIE) and bodies (body inversion effect - BIE). An occipito-temporal negative event-related potential (ERP) component peaking around 170 ms after stimulus onset (N170) is consistently elicited by human faces and bodies and is affected by the inversion of these stimuli. Albeit it is known that emotional expressions can boost structural encoding (resulting in larger N170 components for emotional than for neutral faces), little is known about body emotional expressions. Thus, the current study investigated the effects of different emotional expressions on structural encoding in combination with FIE and BIE. Three ERP components (P1, N170, P2) were recorded using a 128-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) when participants were presented with (upright and inverted) faces and bodies conveying four possible emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear) or no emotion (neutral). Results demonstrated that inversion and emotional expressions independently affected the Accuracy and amplitude of all ERP components (P1, N170, P2). In particular, faces showed specific effects of emotional expressions during the structural encoding stage (N170), while P2 amplitude (representing top-down conceptualisation) was modified by emotional body perception. Moreover, the task performed by participants (i.e., implicit vs. explicit processing of emotional information) differently influenced Accuracy and ERP components. These results support integrated theories of visual perception, thus speaking in favour of the functional independence of the two neurocognitive pathways (one for structural encoding and one for emotional expression analysis) involved in social stimuli processing. Results are discussed highlighting the neurocognitive and computational advantages of the independence between the two pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When participants process a list of semantically strongly related words, the ones that were not presented may later be said, falsely, to have been on the list. This 'false memory effect' has been investigated by means of the DRM paradigm. We applied an emotional version of it to assess the false memory effect for emotional words in bilingual children with a minority language as L1 (their mother tongue) and a monolingual control group. We found that the higher emotionality of the words enhances memory distortion for both the bilingual and the monolingual children, in spite of the disadvantage related to vocabulary skills and of the socioeconomic status that acts on semantic processing independently from the condition of bilingualism. We conclude that bilingual children develop their semantic knowledge separately from their vocabulary skills and parallel to their monolingual peers, with a comparable role played by Arousal and Valence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A long tradition of research has shown that personality traits, such as extraversion and agreeableness, and interpersonal constructs better predict job performance with a tacit but not explicit distinction in sales marketing activities. In this contribution, we aim to understand the role of job-related and interest data, interpersonal, and personality traits in affecting either inbound or outbound marketing activities and the overall sales performance. An original questionnaire integrates the interpersonal traits and personality factors reported in the literature in sales marketing activities (independent variables). The results were matched with the individual job-related and interest data (control variables) and sales performance (criterion variables) -- expressed as the total number of closed contracts over the inbound/outbound related contacts of employees with responsibility in marketing activities for a large banking group. We are able to identify the relevant predictors of sales performance by creating full binary trees using control and independent variables in conditional inference forests and variable importance index measures. Higher performers in either inbound or outbound marketing activities rely on distinct personality sub-traits, which have fundamentally essential implications for interpersonal functioning, and personal data when agreeableness is central to the ability to function effectively in the interpersonal realm of sales activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eye contact established by a human partner has been shown to affect various cognitive processes of the receiver. However, little is known about humans' responses to eye contact established by a humanoid robot. Here, we aimed at examining humans' oscillatory brain response to eye contact with a humanoid robot. Eye contact (or lack thereof) was embedded in a gaze-cueing task and preceded the phase of gaze-related attentional orienting. In addition to examining the effect of eye contact on the recipient, we also tested its impact on gaze-cueing effects (GCEs). Results showed that participants rated eye contact as more engaging and responded with higher desynchronization of alpha-band activity in left fronto-central and central electrode clusters when the robot established eye contact with them, compared to no eye contact condition. However, eye contact did not modulate GCEs. The results are interpreted in terms of the functional roles involved in alpha central rhythms (potentially interpretable also as mu rhythm), including joint attention and engagement in social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]