Publication Date
5-2020
Date of Final Oral Examination (Defense)
5-1-2020
Type of Culminating Activity
Thesis
Degree Title
Master of Science in Computer Science
Department
Computer Science
Supervisory Committee Chair
Casey Kennington, Ph.D.
Supervisory Committee Member
Jerry Fails, Ph.D.
Supervisory Committee Member
Hoda Mehrpouyan, Ph.D.
Abstract
In working towards accomplishing a human-level acquisition and understanding of language, a robot must meet two requirements: the ability to learn words from interactions with its physical environment, and the ability to learn language from people in settings for language use, such as spoken dialogue. The second requirement poses a problem: If a robot is capable of asking a human teacher well-formed questions, it will lead the teacher to provide responses that are too advanced for a robot, which requires simple inputs and feedback to build word-level comprehension.
In a live interactive study, we tested the hypothesis that emotional displays are a viable solution to this problem of how to communicate without relying on language the robot doesn't--indeed, cannot--actually know. Emotional displays can relate the robot's state of understanding to its human teacher, and are developmentally appropriate for the most common language acquisition setting: an adult interacting with a child. For our study, we programmed a robot to independently explore the world and elicit relevant word references and feedback from the participants who are confronted with two robot settings: a setting in which the robot displays emotions, and a second setting where the robot focuses on the task without displaying emotions, which also tests if emotional displays lead a participant to make incorrect assumptions regarding the robot's understanding. Analyzing the results from the surveys and the Grounded Semantics classifiers, we discovered that the use of emotional displays increases the number of inputs provided to the robot, an effect that's modulated by the ratio of positive to negative emotions that were displayed.
DOI
10.18122/td/1660/boisestate
Recommended Citation
McNeill, David, "Do You Feel Me?: Learning Language from Humans with Robot Emotional Displays" (2020). Boise State University Theses and Dissertations. 1660.
10.18122/td/1660/boisestate