Keynote Speakers

Domna Banakou

Dr Domna Banakou is visiting Assistant Professor at New York University Abu Dhabi. Before she was a postdoc at the EventLab, University of Barcelona, directed by Prof Mel Slater. She completed her PhD in clinical psychology and psychobiology at the University of Barcelona. She also holds an MSc degree in computer graphics from University College London, UK, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Ionian University, Greece. Her research focuses on how people respond to events within virtual environments, with a special interest in the topic of bodily representation. She studies how transformations of the virtual bodily appearance lead to perceptual, behavioral, and higher-level cognitive correlates.

Title: Enhancing our lives through embodiment in VR

Abstract: Over the past decade VR has been considered as an “empathy machine” whereby putting people into the viewpoint of a member of a disadvantaged group and then subject them to the usual type of indignities that the group suffers, may increase empathy toward the group. Despite its popularity, this idea has been scrutinized by many who refer to the empathy that arises through such VR experiences as “toxic”, allowing more privileged people to claim that they have experienced what life is like for the oppressed, or who support that this mechanism in itself does not actually lead to changed behavior. In this talk I will introduce the The Golden Rule ethical principle for virtual reality (VR) as a new paradigm for promoting prosocial behavior. The Golden Rule of ethics in its negative form states that you should not do to others what you would not want others to do to you. In VR, one can directly experience harm that they inflicted or were complicit in inflicting from the embodied perspective of the victim. The use of what we refer to as the Golden Rule Embodiment Paradigm relies on participants in VR having the illusion of body ownership over a virtual body. This new paradigm is not an example of VR as an empathy machine where participants are passive receivers of harm. Participants are involved in or acquiescent in harm toward others and then reexperience this harm from an embodied victim’s viewpoint, so that they see and potentially understand the consequences of their own actions or nonactions. The Golden Rule Embodiment Paradigm is introduced through examples of studies in which it led to enhanced helping behavior.

Alessandra Sciutti is Tenure Track Researcher, head of the CONTACT (COgNiTive Architecture for Collaborative Technologies) Unit of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). She received her B.S and M.S. degrees in Bioengineering and the Ph.D. in Humanoid Technologies from the University of Genova in 2010. After two research periods in USA and Japan, in 2018 she has been awarded the ERC Starting Grant wHiSPER (www.whisperproject.eu), focused on the investigation of joint perception between humans and robots. She published more than 80 papers and abstracts in international journals and conferences and participated in the coordination of the CODEFROR European IRSES project (https://www.codefror.eu/). She is currently Associate Editor for several journals, among which the International Journal of Social Robotics, the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems and Cognitive System Research. The scientific aim of her research is to investigate the sensory and motor mechanisms underlying mutual understanding in human-human and human-robot interaction. 

Title: Embodied communication in Cognitive Robotics

Abstract: Despite the significant advancements of the field of Human-Robot Interaction, yet robots lack the ability to intuitively understand human behavior and intentions. This talk will delve into the key regularities characterizing human motion and behaviors, which hold the potential to unveil, for the robotic agent, hidden properties of human agents. Examples will be proposed, derived from the results of the ERC project wHiSPER (https://whisperproject.eu/). By comprehending intentions, emotions, efforts, and care exhibited through subtle cues in the movements of human bodies, robots can improve their general comprehension of their partners. In turn, we will also emphasize the significance of transparent and comprehensible robot motion. Embodied communication is a fundamental element of robot's cognition, necessary to predict and adapt to human actions intuitively and to enable effective long-term human-robot interaction.