Touch is one of the less exploited sensory channels in human machine interactions. While the introduction of the tactile feedback would improve the user experience in several fields, such as training for medical operators, teleoperation, computer aided design and 3D model exploration, no interfaces able to mimic accurately and realistically the tactile feeling produced by the contact with a real soft object are currently available. Devices able to simulate the contact with soft bodies, such as the human organs, might improve the experience. The existing commercially available tactile displays consist of complex mechanisms that limit their portability. Moreover, no devices are able to provide tactile stimuli via a soft interface that can also modulate the contact area with the finger pad, which is required to realistically mimic the contact with soft bodies, as needed for example in systems aimed at simulating interactions with virtual biological tissues or in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery. The aim of this thesis is to develop such a wearable tactile display based on the dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). DEAs are a class of materials that respond to an electric field producing a deformation. In particular, in this thesis, the tactile element consists of a so-called hydrostatically coupled dielectric elastomer actuator (HC-DEAs). HC-DEAs rely on an incompressible fluid that hydrostatically couples a DEA-based active part to a passive part interfaced to the user. The display was also tested within a closed-loop configuration consisting of a hand tracking system and a custom made virtual environment. This proof of concept system allowed for a validation of the abilities of the display. Mechanical and psychophysical tests were performed in order to assess the ability of the system to provide tactile stimuli that can be distinguished by the users. Also, the miniaturisation of the HC-DEA was investigated for applications in refreshable Braille displays or arrays of tactile elements for tactile maps.

Les bénéfices engendrés par l’utilisation croissante de l’automatisation masquent un problème fondamental. En cas de pannes ou de situations imprévues, les opérateurs présentent souvent des difficultés dans la reprise en main de tels systèmes. Le but de cette thèse était d’étudier comment le cadre théorique de l’agentivité pouvait nous aider à identifier et évaluer les informations requises pour rendre la supervision de systèmes fortement automatisés plus efficace, pour restaurer un sentiment de contrôle approprié et pour augmenter l’acceptabilité du système par les opérateurs. Pour y parvenir, nous avons réalisé quatre expériences lors desquelles les participants devaient superviser le vol d’un avion sous pilote automatique. Dans un premier temps, nous avons montré que fournir des informations sur les intentions du système augmentait le sentiment de contrôle des participants. Cependant, ce gain d’information ne nous a pas permis d’observer le phénomène de liage intentionnel. Nous avons également trouvé que cette information entraînait de meilleures performances pour détecter des décisions non-optimales du système, conduisait à un changement dans la façon dont les participants allouaient leurs ressources attentionnelles et aussi augmentait le niveau d’acceptabilité du système. De façon intéressante, nous avons également montré dans la dernière expérience que le délai entre l’apparition de l’information sur les intentions du système et l’implémentation de son action impactait différemment la performance et les sentiments de contrôle et d’acceptabilité des opérateurs. / Human operators seem often helpless to takeover an automated system in case of failure. This "out-of-the-loop” problem occurs when an operator is unable to understand the intentions and to predict the outcome of actions of the system. The goal of this thesis was to study how the theoretical framework of agency can help identifying and evaluating the information required to make supervision of fully automated systems more efficient, to restore an appropriate sense of control and to increase the user acceptance of what the system is doing. To achieve this goal, we tested participants in four aircraft supervision tasks. We first showed that providing greater information about the system’s intentions increased the participants' sense of control. However, this condition did not produce any change in a frequently-used implicit marker of the sense of agency, the so-called “intentional binding effect”. We also found that this information led to better performances in detecting when the system’s decisions were non-optimal, to a change in the way participants allocated their attentional resources and also to increase the level of user acceptance. Interestingly, we also showed in the last experiment that the delay between prime messages providing information about the system's intentions and the system's actions impacted differently the performance and the operator's levels of control and acceptance. In the last section, we discuss the implications of our results for the field of human-machine interaction. We claim that the science of agency may be useful to elaborate concrete recommendations for designing automatic systems in which operators remain "in the loop" of control.

Ce travail de recherche doctorale étudie l’influence de la stimulation tactile de l’interface lors de l’évaluation en ligne du produit. A travers un plan d’expériences composé d’une étude exploratoire au design de recherche mixte et de trois expérimentations, nous cherchons à identifier, dans un premier temps, l’effet de l’absence d’interaction directe avec le produit (étude exploratoire) puis nous testons l’effet du type de test de produits sur la préférence d’achat du consommateur (i.e. physique vs. virtuel) (étude 1). Dans un deuxième temps, nous étudions l’effet de la stimulation tactile directe de l’interface sur la perception de similarité du test et l’influence de cette dernière sur l’évaluation du produit. En particulier, nous testons deux effets: celui de la congruence entre la stimulation tactile de l’interface et la texture du produit (étude 2) puis celui de la familiarité des textures (étude 3). D’une part, nous montrons que le consommateur est à la recherche d’interaction sensorielle lors de son interaction virtuelle avec les produits, ce qui lui permet de considérer cette expérience virtuelle comme plus réaliste, notamment au niveau sensoriel (étude exploratoire). Nous montrons également que le consommateur préfère l’expérience virtuelle du produit malgré le manque significatif d’interactions sensorielles, notamment tactiles (étude 1). D’autre part, nous montrons que l’interaction des textures entre l’interface et le produit influence négativement la similarité perçue du test (étude 2) tandis que, lorsque les textures ne sont pas familières, l’interaction des textures influence positivement la similarité perçue (étude 3). A partir de ces résultats, nous concluons que le consommateur est à la recherche de stimulation tactile lors de son expérience virtuelle avec le produit afin de satisfaire son besoin de toucher et d’enrichir son expérience sensorielle en ligne. En particulier, l’effet positif de l’interaction des textures, lorsque la stimulation n’est pas familière, sur la similarité perçue du test suggère que les consommateurs considèrent l’information tactile comme suffisante pour percevoir une similarité sensorielle à celle obtenue en magasin. / Our doctoral research examines the influence of tactile stimulation in online product evaluation. With an exploratory study and three experiments, we aim at identifying the effect of the absence of direct product touch (exploratory study), and then concentrate on the effect of the type of product testing on the consumer’s preference for purchasing (physical vs. virtual) (study 1). Next, we look at the influence of the interface tactile stimulation on the perceived product test similarity, of which the latter positively influences the online product evaluation. In particular, we test two types of effect: the congruence (study 2) and the familiarity of the textures (study 3). On the one hand, our results show that consumers are seeking a higher sensory input into online environments while interacting with products, especially from a tactile perspective (exploratory study). Results also highlight that consumers prefer the online product experience, even though they regret the absence of products' tactile sensations (study 1). On the other hand, we demonstrate that the interaction between the interface's direct tactile stimulation and the product's texture negatively influence the perceived similarity of product testing when textures fit, whereas when the textures are unfamiliar, the interaction of texture positively influences the perceived similarity of product testing. From these results, we conclude that consumers are in need of tactile input into virtual product experiences to satisfy their need for touch, and enhance their online sensory experiences. Notably, the positive effect of the interaction of textures, in an unfamiliar tactile stimulation, suggests that consumers consider the direct tactile stimulation as not being sufficient enough to provide useful information, but they assimilate it to a real product testing from a tactile perspective.

The provision of an adequate liability regime for ADAS technologies is an essential prerequisite for its roll out over the coming decade. Facing to the challenge of future highly automated vehicles, this paper proposed a Human-Machine Transition (HMT) approach as a common conceptual framework for considering Human Machine Interaction (HMI), liability and ethical issues in a unified way. The issues that arise are interrogated from a legal perspective, more specifically liability regimes and that of applied ethics. The paper highlights the issue of the handover/takeover. Potential consequences for insurance companies are then identified accordingly, with the aim to progress towards the sustainable deployment of automated vehicles on public roads.

This dissertation reports five experiments exploring the use of AI-based smart agents to support physician-patient interactions. In each experiment, a sample of female participants evaluates video tapes of simulated physician-patient interactions in a setting involving early stage breast cancer diagnosis. Experiment 1 manipulates communication style (empathetic/impassive) for both a human physician (played by an actor) and an avatar that mimics the human. Empathetic styles elicit more liking and trust from patients and are also more persuasive. The avatar loses less than the human physician on desirable patient outcomes when communication style changes from empathetic to impassive. A mediation analysis shows that the communication style and physician type effects flow serially through liking and trust to persuasion. Experiment 2 reports an extended replication, adding a new avatar with less resemblance to the human physician. The findings match those of Experiment 1: both avatars have similar effects on liking, trust, and persuasion and are similarly anthropomorphized. Experiment 3 examines whether the patient's mindset (hope/fear about the cancer prognosis) influences likely patient outcomes. The mindset manipulation does not influence patient outcomes, but we find support for the core serial mediation model (from liking to trust to persuasion). Experiment 4 explores whether it matters how the avatar is deployed. Introducing the avatar as the physician's assistant lowers its evaluations perhaps because the patients feel deprioritized. The human physician is evaluated significantly higher on all outcome dimensions. Experiments 1-4 focused on the first phase of a standard three-phased physician-patient interaction protocol. Experiment 5 examines communication style (empathetic/ impassive) and physician type (human/avatar) effects across the three sequential phases. Patient outcomes improve monotonically over the three interaction phases across all study conditions. Overall, our studies show that an empathetic communication style is more effective in eliciting higher levels of liking, trust, and persuasion. The human physician and the avatar elicit similar levels of these desirable patient interaction outcomes. The avatar loses less when communication style changes from empathetic to impassive, suggesting that patients may have lower expectations of empathy from avatars. Thus, if carefully deployed, smart agents acting as physicians' avatars may effectively support physician-patient interactions. / Doctor of Philosophy / Healthcare professionals often have the difficult task of breaking bad news to patients. Research has shown that physician's communication style influences patient outcomes (liking, trust, persuasion, and compliance). Some physicians may adopt an impassive communication style to avoid emotional involvement with patients and some others may be overly empathetic and are prone to be perceived as inauthentic. These deficiencies persist despite an emphasis on developing physician communication skills. As in other service domains, a new generation of humanoid service robots (HSRs) offers potential for supporting physician-patient interactions. The effectiveness of such Artificial Intelligence (AI)/smart agent supported physician-patient interactions will rest, in part, on the communication style designed into the smart agents. A patient interacting with a smart agent emulating a human physician may assess different cognitive capabilities (knowledge and expertise), attribute different motivations, and make different socio-cultural appraisals than when they interact with the physician in-person. This research examines whether communication style (empathetic versus impassive) implemented via facial expression and vocal delivery elicits different patient responses when interacting with a smart agent (a physician' avatar) versus the physician in person. Findings suggest that, an empathetic (vs impassive) communication style elicits more positive patient responses, avatar physicians fare at par or better than the human physician and lose less on the patient outcomes when the communication style changes from empathetic to impassive. The avatars' appearance does not play a role in persuasion. Avatars were similarly anthropomorphized and participants' mindset (Hope/Fear) did not influence the outcomes. However, if the avatars are introduced as assistants (versus standalone physicians) there is a possibility that patients may feel downgraded/deprioritized, leading to lower evaluations for the avatars than the human physician. The contrast created when the human physician introduces the avatar may have unintended consequences that lower the avatar's evaluation. Without a direct contrast, patients may be more receptive to avatar interactions, particularly as they become more familiar in service environments. Our findings suggest that, if carefully deployed, smart agents acting as physicians' avatars may effectively support physician-patient interactions. Indeed, patients may have lower expectations of empathy from an avatar versus a human physician. This can facilitate more effective physician-patient interactions and elicit positive downstream effects on patient liking, trust and compliance.

After a brief review of machine learning techniques and applications, this Ph.D. thesis examines several approaches for implementing machine learning architectures and algorithms into hardware within our laboratory. From this interdisciplinary background support, we have motivations for novel approaches that we intend to follow as an objective of innovative hardware implementations of dynamically self-reconfigurable logic for enhanced self-adaptive, self-(re)organizing and eventually self-assembling machine learning systems, while developing this new particular area of research. And after reviewing some relevant background of robotic control methods followed by most recent advanced cognitive controllers, this Ph.D. thesis suggests that amongst many well-known ways of designing operational technologies, the design methodologies of those leading-edge high-tech devices such as cognitive chips that may well lead to intelligent machines exhibiting conscious phenomena should crucially be restricted to extremely well defined constraints. Roboticists also need those as specifications to help decide upfront on otherwise infinitely free hardware/software design details. In addition and most importantly, we propose these specifications as methodological guidelines tightly related to ethics and the nowadays well-identified workings of the human body and of its psyche.

<p>A thesis study investigating the development and evaluation of a computer vision (CV) system for a manufacturing assembly task is reported. The CV inference results are compared to a Manufacturing Process Plan and an automation method completes a buyoff in the software, Solumina. Research questions were created and three hypotheses were tested. A literature review was conducted recognizing little consensus of Industry 4.0 technology adoption in manufacturing industries. Furthermore, the literature review uncovered the need for additional research within the topic of CV. Specifically, literature points towards more research regarding the cognitive capabilities of CV in manufacturing. A CV system was developed and evaluated to test for 90% or greater confidence in part detection. A CV dataset was developed and the system was trained and validated with it. Dataset contextualization was leveraged and evaluated, as per literature. A CV system was trained from custom datasets, containing six classes of part. The pre-contextualization dataset and post-contextualization dataset was compared by a Two-Sample T-Test and statistical significance was noted for three classes. A python script was developed to compare as-assembled locations with as-defined positions of components, per the Manufacturing Process Plan. A comparison of yields test for CV-based True Positives (TPs) and human-based TPs was conducted with the system operating at a 2σ level. An automation method utilizing Microsoft Power Automate was developed to complete the cognitive functionality of the CV system testing, by completing a buyoff in the software, Solumina, if CV-based TPs were equal to or greater than human-based TPs.</p>