From embodied to socially embedded agents - Implications for interaction-aware robots

  • Authors:

  • Kerstin Dautenhahn;Bernard Ogden;Tom Quick

  • Affiliations:

  • Adaptive Systems Research Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB, UK;Adaptive Systems Research Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB, UK;Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK

  • Venue:
  • Cognitive Systems Research
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

First, this article proposes a minimal definition of embodiment that can be applied across animals and artefacts. We discuss the potential contributions of this operational definition with respect to assessing and measuring the degree of embodiment in different biological and artificial systems. Second, we outline how this definition can be extended to lead to the particular notion of social embeddedness. Socially embedded agents are structurally coupled with their social environment, in that their sensorimotor activity is grounded in the social environment that the agent is surrounded by. Lastly, based on research in the social sciences on human-human interaction, we discuss perceptual requirements for interaction-aware robotic agents-agents whose identification and interpretation of the (social) environment is facilitated by awareness of the structure of agent-agent interactions (including humans 'in the loop'). We suggest relevant concepts and heuristics that can contribute to studies of degrees of embodiment of robots that interact with social environments. Manipulating and systematically investigating these heuristics permits variation of the degree of embodiment of such interaction-aware robots.