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A personalized human-robot interaction (HRI) can increase the acceptance of robots through positive effects on the user experience (UX), as well as the user’s attitude towards and perception of the robot. From an ethical perspective, however, personalized HRI poses certain risks with regard to autonomy and manipulation of the users. Taking the scenario of a personalized quizmaster robot as an example, this paper combines the user centered design of a personalized robot behavior with ethical design perspectives. Based on motivation strate gies of the robot quiz master, the paper assesses and generalizes which interaction behaviors may be ethically permissible and at the same time enjoyable, engaging and motivating. Balancing the two perspectives of UX and ethical design, we propose transferable recommendations for the design of personalized HRI based on the approach of cascading models of design.

To integrate social robots in real-life contexts, it is crucial that they are accepted by the users. Acceptance is not only related to the functionality of the robot but also strongly depends on how the user experiences the interaction. Established design principles from usability and user experience research can be applied to the realm of human–robot interaction, to design robot behavior for the comfort and well-being of the user. Focusing the design on these aspects alone, however, comes with certain ethical challenges, especially regarding the user’s privacy and autonomy. Based on an example scenario of human–robot interaction in elder care, this paper discusses how established design principles can be used in social robotic design. It then juxtaposes these with ethical considerations such as privacy and user autonomy. Combining user experience and ethical perspectives, we propose adjustments to the original design principles and canvass our own design recommendations for a positive and ethically acceptable social human–robot interaction design. In doing so, we show that positive user experience and ethical design may be sometimes at odds, but can be reconciled in many cases, if designers are willing to adjust and amend time-tested design principles.

Affect monitoring is being discussed as a novel strategy to make adaptive systems more user-oriented. Basic knowledge about oscillatory processes and functional connectivity underlying affect during naturalistic human&ndash, computer interactions (HCI) is, however, scarce. This study assessed local oscillatory power entrainment and distributed functional connectivity in a close-to-naturalistic HCI-paradigm. Sixteen participants interacted with a simulated assistance system which deliberately evoked positive (supporting goal-achievement) and negative (impeding goal-achievement) affective reactions. Electroencephalography (EEG) was used to examine the reactivity of the cortical system during the interaction by studying both event-related (de-)synchronization (ERD/ERS) and event-related functional coupling of cortical networks towards system-initiated assistance. Significantly higher &alpha, band and &beta, band ERD in centro-parietal and parieto-occipital regions and &beta, band ERD in bi-lateral fronto-central regions were observed during impeding system behavior. Supportive system behavior activated significantly higher &gamma, band ERS in bi-hemispheric parietal-occipital regions. This was accompanied by functional coupling of remote &beta, band and &gamma, band activity in the medial frontal, left fronto-central and parietal regions, respectively. Our findings identify oscillatory signatures of positive and negative affective processes as reactions to system-initiated assistance. The findings contribute to the development of EEG-based neuroadaptive assistance loops by suggesting a non-obtrusive method for monitoring affect in HCI.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is associated with adverse left ventricular (LV) remodeling causing dysfunction and malignant arrhythmias. Severely affected patients present with disease onset during childhood and sudden cardiac death risk (SCD) stratification is of the highest importance in this cohort. This study aimed to investigate genotype–phenotype association regarding clinical outcome and disease progression in pediatric onset HCM. Medical charts from forty-nine patients with pediatric HCM who had undergone genetic testing were reviewed for retrospective analysis. Demographic, clinical, transthoracic echocardiographic, electrocardiographic, long-term electrocardiogram, cardiopulmonary exercise test, cardiac magnetic resonance, and medication data were recorded. Childhood onset HCM was diagnosed in 29 males and 20 females. Median age at last follow-up was 18.7 years (range 2.6–51.7 years) with a median follow-up time since diagnosis of 8.5 years (range 0.2–38.0 years). Comparison of patients carrying mutations in distinct genes and comparison of genotype-negative with genotype-positive individuals, revealed no differences in functional classification, LV morphology, hypertrophy, systolic and diastolic function, fibrosis and cardiac medication. Patients with compound mutations had a significantly higher risk for major arrhythmic events than a single-mutation carrier. No association between affected genes and disease severity or progression was identified in this cohort.

Background: Right ventricular impairment (RVI) secondary to altered hemodynamics contributes to morbidity and mortality in adult patients after tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) repair. The goal of this study was to describe signaling pathways contributing to right ventricular (RV) remodeling by analyzing over lifetime alterations of RV gene expression in affected patients. Methods: RV tissue was collected at the time of cardiac surgery in 13 patients with a diagnosis of TOF. RNA was isolated and whole transcriptome sequencing was performed. Gene profiles were compared between a group of 6 adults with signs of RVI undergoing right ventricle to pulmonary artery conduit surgery and a group of 7 infants, undergoing TOF correction. Definition of RVI in adult patients was based on clinical symptoms, evidence of RV hypertrophy, dilation, dysfunction or elevated pressure on echocardiographic, cardiovascular magnetic resonance, or catheterization evaluation. Results: Median age was 34 years in RVI patients and 5 months in infants. Based on P adjusted value

In Human-Robot Interaction, personalization has been proposed as a strategy to increase acceptance for social robots. The present paper describes how behavioral design patterns can be used to tailor the interaction experience to the individual user's characteristics and needs. To demonstrate this approach, we designed a quiz game application for the MiRo robot. The robot acts as the quizmaster and shows different behaviors (coach-like/empathic vs. challenging/provocative) depending on the type of user who is playing the game (community-focused vs. competition-focused player). We describe the process of creating the two quizmaster personalities and related behavioral patterns as well as the technical background for integrating them with the interaction model for the quiz game. The result is a Wizard-of-Oz demonstration of the personalizable quiz game that is accompanied by an interactive video prototype remote for user studies and demo purposes.

Using speech as an effective communication modality in human-robot interaction (HRI) allows designers to implement conceptual metaphors as a linguistic device. Metaphors appear to instantiate psychological framing effects and can influence the user´s reasoning significantly. The present paper presents two consecutive studies that explore how metaphors can be used in speech output for social robots to deliberately influence the user's perception of their relationship with the robot. As a first step, metaphoric expressions for framing cooperation or delegation in HRI settings were identified in a workshop. Effects of those metaphors on people´s strategies for organizing tasks in human-robot collaboration were then evaluated in an online survey. We found that metaphors suitable for encouraging users to do a task together with a robot are metaphors like "partners on a journey" or "allies". In contrast, metaphors that can be used to encourage handing over the task to a robot are metaphors like "boss" or "ruler". Further research needs to test whether these metaphors also have an effect on users' actions in HRI settings.

We present an update from 6 years of practical use of UX Concept Exploration, a method for user research and user-driven innovation. After a short overview of the method, the paper describes experiences and suggests modifications of the method, where appropriate. Finally, we discuss guidelines to make the method usable in environments with only little UX expertise and limited resources, like small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) usually face.

Autonomous driving provides new opportunities for the use of time during a car ride. One such important scenario is working. We conducted a neuroergonomical study to compare three configurations of a car interior (based on lighting, visual stimulation, sound) regarding their potential to support productive work. We assessed participants? concentration, performance and workload with subjective, behavioral and EEG measures while they carried out two different concentration tasks during simulated autonomous driving. Our results show that a configuration with a large-area, bright light with high blue components, and reduced visual and auditory stimuli promote performance, quality, efficiency, increased concentration and lower cognitive workload. Increased visual and auditory stimulation paired with linear, darker light with very few blue components resulted in lower performance, reduced subjective concentration, and higher cognitive workload, but did not differ from a normal car configuration. Our multi-method approach thus reveals possible car interior configurations for an ideal workspace.

Brain-based interaction is discussed as a strategy to make assistive technologies more user-oriented. We investigated whether aging influences discrimination of neuroelectrical signatures underlying affective user reactions to system-initiated assistance behavior. Electroencephalography was used to examine the reactivity of the cortical system for two different age groups during interaction with a system that induce positive and negative affective events by supporting or impeding goal achievement during a navigation task. We found that affect processing during the interaction task remains unaffected by natural cortical alteration processes, but varied to different degrees across cortical regions between the two age groups. More specifically, discrimination based on P300 correlated with age, thus revealing a distinct intrinsic neurocognitive strategy in the aging brain. Addressing these neuroelectrical signatures may enable neuroadaptive assistance systems to perform user-specific adjustments.

To design successful, sustainable future mobility systems, it is crucial to provide incentives for commuters to change to eco-friendly alternative routes and means of transport. We believe that this can be realized by a user-centered, need-based design of a mobility infrastructure combined with an intelligent planning system that provides a positive commuting experience. As a first step towards this goal, we conducted interactive focus groups with commuters to identify their motivational drivers as well as opportunities for a positive, personalized commuting experience. The results reveal the demand to support the hedonic use of ways (taking routes for the enjoyable experience itself) and a segmentation into four mobility experience types (MxT) describing commuting and interaction preferences of commuters based on their need's profile.

User Experience research mainly makes use of self-reported measures to assess the user’s experience when using a technical product, especially regarding hedonic product qualities. Our study investigates whether pragmatic and hedonic qualities can be distinguished using two types of implicit measure: behavioural and neurophysiological. Participants interacted with two different software tools designed to emphasize hedonic and pragmatic qualities, respectively. Their implicit evaluations of the two prototypes were examined with the Approach Avoidance Task (AAT) and simultaneous electroencephalographic recordings (EEG), using snapshots from the interaction scenarios. While the AAT showed no differences, the analysis of event-related EEG potentials revealed differences around 300 ms after stimulus presentation. Significant higher cortical activity in the frontal cortex was found for approach tendencies towards snapshots taken from the hedonic prototype interaction. Higher potentials in the parietal (motor) cortex were found for avoidance tendencies towards the pragmatic prototype. The findings show that hedonic and pragmatic user experience qualities can be distinguished based on neuroelectrical data.