Healthcare robots

Yesterday I attended a talk by our new post-doc, Osamu Sugiyama. He's worked with the tiny Robovie MR-2 at ATR:

The robot could be used as a healthcare robot, he said. For example, when patients visit the doctor, explanations can get long and complicated. A bit embarrassed, patients just nod and pretend to understand instead of asking questions. So he proposed a healthcare robot that patients would be comfortable asking many questions to.

Also, even if the patient understood instructions at the doctor's office, they could forget once at home. A healthcare robot could remind them to make sure that they continue to follow doctor's orders.

Articles on Cross-modal Emotions

Music and movement share a dynamic structure that supports universal expressions of emotion

http://intl.pnas.org/content/110/1/70

Basic emotions expressed through music and movement are cross-cultural

Cross-cultural recognition of basic emotions through nonverbal emotional vocalizations

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/01/11/0908239106

Basic emotions expressed through voice is cross-cultural

Emotion Recognition through Multiple Modalities: Face, Body Gesture, Speech

http://rd.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-540-85099-1_8

Book: Affect and Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction

http://rd.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-540-85099-1/page/1

Articles on Emotions in Child Development

Lots of new information from Child Development journals:

Preschoolers Use Emotion in Speech to Learn New Words
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12074/abstract
Kids were able to recall only when negative affect was used?

Longitudinal Relations Among Language Skills, Anger Expression, and Regulatory Strategies in Early Childhood
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12027/full
Better language skills made kids less prone to expressing anger? Perhaps because they could express their feelings using words instead of other expressions (face, tantrum, etc?)