Next week Hicup Lab will host professors from Interactive Media Design Lab, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan. We will host Prof. Hirokazu Kato (director of IMD Lab), associate professor Masayuki Kanbara and assistant professor Taishi Sawabe. During the visit Kanbara and Sawabe will present at Monday Computer Science seminar. See details bellow.
Date, time & place: 13.3.2023, 16.00, GlagoljaĊĦja 8, VP1.
SEMINAR PRESENTATION 1: Gentle Stroke with Speech by Robot for Infusing Positive Emotion by Masayuki Kanbara.
Bio: Dr. Masayuki Kanbara received a Ph.D. degree in engineering from Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) in 2002. He was an assistant professor at the Information Science Department at NAIST since 2002 and a visiting researcher at University of California, Santa Barbara in 2008-2009. He has been an associate professor at NAIST since 2010. Fields of research are focused on augmented reality, computer vision and Human-Robot Interaction.
Abstract: It has been demonstrated that the action of “stroking” has a relaxing effect on the body and mind. However, while some studies have shown the importance of “Gentle stroke with speech,” it has not been clarified how human actually perform the “Gentle stroke with speech” behavior. In this study, we analyzed the “Gentle stroke with speech” behavior with the aim of modeling the “talking and stroking behavior” in a situation in which a person is caring for another person.
SEMINAR PRESENTATION 2: Comfort Intelligence for Autonomous Vehicles by Taishi Sawabe
Bio: Taishi Sawabe is an Assistant Professor at Interactive Media Design Laboratory at NAIST.
He received his B.E. adviser, Prof. Ma, from Ritsumeikan University in the field of biomimetics robots. He received a Ph.D. from Adviser Prof. Hagita at the Ambient Intelligence Laboratory at NAIST. His research interest is Biomimetics robots, Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Human Comfort, and Autonomous Vehicles. Mini projects: TSUNDERE-Interaction, VR Live Agent-Interaction.
Abstract: In this presentation, I will introduce an intelligence system that considers passengers’ comfort inside moving autonomous vehicles, which is called Comfort Intelligence (CI). In the research, anxiety reduction is mainly targeted. Anxiety comes from a variety of stress factors. In the field of vehicles, I defined stress in autonomous vehicles as Autonomous Vehicle Stress (AVS) to estimate, classify and consider reduction methods for reducing anxiety in autonomous vehicles. Moreover, anxiety is not only about stress but also has to consider motion sickness, called Autonomous Vehicle Motion Sickness (AVMS) which is mixed with car sickness and VR sickness in the future autonomous vehicle environment. Therefore, this study explains the importance of considering comfort intelligence (CI) by looking at previous research on anxiety, as well as discussing stress and motion sickness perspectives.
