When a robot is social: Spatial arrangements and multimodal semiotic engagement in the practice of social robotics
Open Access
- 5 October 2011
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Social Studies of Science
- Vol. 41 (6), 893-926
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312711420565
Abstract
Social roboticists design their robots to function as social agents in interaction with humans and other robots. Although we do not deny that the robot’s design features are crucial for attaining this aim, we point to the relevance of spatial organization and coordination between the robot and the humans who interact with it. We recover these interactions through an observational study of a social robotics laboratory and examine them by applying a multimodal interactional analysis to two moments of robotics practice. We describe the vital role of roboticists and of the group of preverbal infants, who are involved in a robot’s design activity, and we argue that the robot’s social character is intrinsically related to the subtleties of human interactional moves in laboratories of social robotics. This human involvement in the robot’s social agency is not simply controlled by individual will. Instead, the human–machine couplings are demanded by the situational dynamics in which the robot is lodged.Keywords
This publication has 42 references indexed in Scilit:
- Moving AndroidSocial Studies of Science, 2009
- Socialization between toddlers and robots at an early childhood education centerProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2007
- Drilling SurgeonsScience, Technology, & Human Values, 2007
- Socially intelligent robots: dimensions of human–robot interactionPhilosophical Transactions B, 2007
- Scientific Issues Concerning AndroidsThe International Journal of Robotics Research, 2007
- Interactive Robots as Social Partners and Peer Tutors for Children: A Field TrialHuman–Computer Interaction, 2004
- Was the Last Turn The Right Turn? The Semiotic Turn and A. J. GreimasConfigurations, 1994
- Artificial intelligence as craftworkPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,1993
- The Interpenetration of Communicative Contexts: Examples from Medical EncountersSocial Psychology Quarterly, 1987
- The Social Construction of Unreality: A Case Study of a Family's Attribution of Competence to a Severely Retarded ChildFamily Process, 1985