The measurement of meaning

Definition: To what extent does the study allow us to draw conclusions about a causal effect between two or more constructs? Issues: Selection, maturation, history, mortality, testing, regression towrd the mean, selection by maturation, treatment by mortality, treatment by testing, measured treatment variables Increase: Eliminate the threats, above all do experimental manipulations, random assignment, and counterbalancing.

Reliability and validity

Many technical communities are vigorously pursuing research topics that contribute to the Internet of Things (IoT). Nowadays, as sensing, actuation, communication, and control become even more sophisticated and ubiquitous, there is a significant overlap in these communities, sometimes from slightly different perspectives. More cooperation between communities is encouraged. To provide a basis for discussing open research problems in IoT, a vision for how IoT could change the world in the distant future is first presented. Then, eight key research topics are enumerated and research problems within these topics are discussed.

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Research Directions for the Internet of Things

Objective: We evaluate and quantify the effects of human, robot, and environmental factors on perceived trust in human-robot interaction (HRI)Background: To date, reviews of trust in HRI have been

/pdf/a-meta-analysis-of-factors-affecting-trust-in-human-robot-1305er4ix4.pdf

A meta-analysis of factors affecting trust in human-robot interaction.

which is used to describe a third component of thinking processes, particularly preverbal, and it denotes the concept that the world is activated by some generalized "energy" that links together causally all objects and events ; it is presumably revealed by a person's lack of curiosity about causal connections, as though they were self-evident. Aside from the rather frequent use of such key words, having strong connotations for this reviewer far away from what the author is aiming to denote, the book is written in a lucid and stimulating style that makes reading it an invigorating intellectual exercise. It is a book that is likely to have somewhat limited attraction to the full-time clinician, especially one treating adult patients. And child psychiatrists and psychologists, if reasonably well read, will most likely be familiar with the majority of references from which this author has synthesized his material. On the other hand, the scholarly and refreshing con¬ ceptual approaches of the author will appeal to psychologists, philosophers, linguists, and psychiatrists with a research bent and anyone else who wants to be provoked to do some thinking on the problems of language, language development, and the psychology of cognition. Louis A. GOTTSCHALK, M.D. Plans and the Structure of Behavior. By George A Miller, Eugene gALANTER, and Karl H. Pribram. Price, $5.00. Pp. 226. Henry Holt & Co., Inc., New York 17, 1960. This is an important book for psychiatrists and behavioral scientists, since it presents a clear, concise study of the application of cybernetics, information and computer theory to the problem of analyzing behavior. The authors have been actively engaged in behavioral research in different areas\p=m-\Millerin information and communication, Galanter in experimental psychology, and Pribram in neurophysiology. The book resulted from a series of discussions which they engaged in during a year they spent together at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto, Calif. Their original intent was to write a diary, as it were, of the development of their ideas and, fortunately, enough of this remains to make the book clear, easy to read, and interesting. It is also fortunate, however, that in the final writing a variety of studies comparing the "behavior" of computing machines with human "cognitive behavior" have been reviewed and summarized. The result is one of the best presentations of the present status of the brain-computer problem. The authors, however, do not discuss certain aspects of this problem, such as the difference between the brain and its vast number of parallel channels, but few operations, and the modern high-speed computer with its few channels and vast numbers of operations. This omission is consistent with their interest, since it would introduce the question of mechanisms rather than the problem of the structure of behavior as it is observed in everyday life in the clinic and in experiments on learning, conditioning, etc. Similarly, they do not discuss the qualitative differences between mechanisms of memory in the computer and those in the brain. In the former, a "memory"\p=m-\ i.e., stored information\p=m-\isidentified, metaphorically speaking, by an address, whereas no such mechanism is known in the brain (personal communication, Dr. Julian Bigelow). With few exceptions, however, the data, concepts, and theories presented are handled with elegant precision, as illustrated by the discussion of Sherrington's concepts of the "Reflex" and the "Synapse," Kurt Lewin's ideas of "tension states," and the numerous references to the work of Newell, Shaw, and Simon on computers and logic. There are, nevertheless, areas with

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fjors.1968.86.pdf

Plans and the Structure of Behavior

Telepresence robots can be thought of as embodied video conferencing on wheels. Companies producing these robots imagine them being used in a wide variety of situations (e.g., ad-hoc conversations at the office, inspections and troubleshooting at factories, and patient rounds at medical facilities). In July and August 2010, we examined office-related use cases in a series of studies using two prototype robots (Anybots' QB and VGo Communications' VGo). In this paper, we present two studies: conference room meetings (n=6) and moving hallway conversations (n=24). We discuss who might benefit from using telepresence robots, in what scenarios, and the features that telepresence robots must incorporate for use in ad-hoc interactions.

/pdf/exploring-use-cases-for-telepresence-robots-xurzvom6fo.pdf

Exploring use cases for telepresence robots

Wheelchair-mounted robotic arms have been commercially available for a decade. In order to operate these robotic arms, a user must have a high level of cognitive function. Our research focuses on replacing a manufacturer-provided, menu-based interface with a vision-based system while adding autonomy to reduce the cognitive load. Instead of manual task decomposition and execution, the user explicitly designates the end goal, and the system autonomously retrieves the object. In this paper, we present the complete system which can autonomously retrieve a desired object from a shelf. We also present the results of a 15-week study in which 12 participants from our target population used our system, totaling 198 trials.

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“I want that”: Human-in-the-loop control of a wheelchair-mounted robotic arm

Telepresence robots are mobile robot platforms capable of providing two way audio and video communication. Recently there has been a surge in companies designing telepresence robots. We conducted a series of user studies at Google in Mountain View with two different commercially available telepresence robots. Based on the data collected from these user studies, we present a set of guidelines for designing telepresence robots. These essential guidelines pertain to video, audio, user interface, physical features, and autonomous behaviors.

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Essential features of telepresence robots

Multi-touch technologies hold much promise for the command and control of mobile robot teams. To improve the ease of learning and usability of these interfaces, we conducted an experiment to determine the gestures that people would naturally use, rather than the gestures they would be instructed to use in a pre-designed system. A set of 26 tasks with differing control needs were presented sequentially on a DiamondTouch to 31 participants. We found that the task of controlling robots exposed unique gesture sets and considerations not previously observed, particularly in desktop-like applications. In this paper, we present the details of these findings, a taxonomy of the gesture set, and guidelines for designing gesture sets for robot control.

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Analysis of natural gestures for controlling robot teams on multi-touch tabletop surfaces

Accessibility is a challenge for people with disabilities. Differences in cognitive ability, sensory impairments, motor dexterity, behavioral skills, and social skills must be taken into account when designing interfaces for assistive devices. Flexible interfaces tuned for individuals, instead of custom-built solutions, may benefit a larger number of people. The development and evaluation of a flexible interface for controlling a wheelchair mounted robotic arm is described in this paper. There are four versions of the interface based on input device (touch screen or joystick) and a moving or stationary shoulder camera. We describe results from an eight week experiment conducted with representative end users who range in physical and cognitive ability.

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Katherine M. Tsui

Papers

Exploring use cases for telepresence robots

“I want that”: Human-in-the-loop control of a wheelchair-mounted robotic arm

Essential features of telepresence robots

Analysis of natural gestures for controlling robot teams on multi-touch tabletop surfaces

Development and evaluation of a flexible interface for a wheelchair mounted robotic arm