FIGURE 1.

Investigation of human-robot interaction with the use of neuroscientific methods. The image on the left illustrates the setup of an fMRI experiment measuring changes in blood flow in social brain areas during a joint attention task with the robot EDDIE (designed by Technical University of Munich). Participants are asked to respond as fast and accurately as possible to the identity of a target letter (“F” vs. “T”) that is either looked at nor not looked at by EDDIE. Changes in activation in social brain areas can be captured with a high spatial resolution, but no natural interactivity with the robot can be achieved (i.e., interaction needs to be imagined: offline social cognition). The image on the right shows a setup where neural processes associated with joint attention are examined using EEG and eye-tracking during interactions with the robot iCub (designed at the Istituto Italiano di Technologia by Metta et al., 2008). Similar to the previous example, participants are asked to react to the identity of a target letter (“T” vs. “V”) that is either looked at or not looked at by iCub. Mechanisms of joint attention can be captured with high temporal resolution during relatively natural interactions (i.e., online social cognition). Written informed consent has been obtained for publication of the identifiable image on the right.