The effects of perspective taking on ratings of human-likeness and trust are investigated. Seventy-four participants were shown pictures of two agents (human and robot) and storytelling narratives, which they had to complete. Afterwards, participants completed augmented versions of the Trust Scale and Human-Likeness Posttask Survey. Half of the participants were given stories using the perspective of the agent (perspective taking condition) and the other half was given stories using a third-person perspective (non-perspective taking condition). It was hypothesized that participants in the perspective taking condition would rate the agent higher on human-likeness and trust compared to the non-perspective taking condition. Interestingly, the results support our hypothesis for human-likeness but not for trust. The findings have important implications for the design of social robots by demonstrating the importance of perspective taking exercises on perception of humanness. Future studies need to validate the effects of perspective taking on human-robot interaction in various contexts and with different robot agents.

This paper reviews current human-automation trust and trust repair literature as it applies to health-care systems. In addition, we examine the increased use and relevance of social agents, such as robots and virtual agents, within the medical field and consider the importance of using social agents in this particular domain. Furthermore, we examine strategies for trust repair following errors in health-care settings, and provide a conceptual framework for repairing trust with social automation. Most literature to date stems from a human-human perspective, and we hope to extend this work to the field of social automation. If these strategies are effective, human automation systems in health-care can maintain appropriate levels of trust, ensuring effective and efficient long-term collaborations in critical work areas.

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 When in space, due to a lack of gravity, fluid accumulates in the head resulting in a swollen face. The first project found that prior exposure of facial expressions containing edema improved accuracy in identifying facial expressions of anger and pain.  The second project focused on whether a six degree head down position from supine (NASA’s procedure to simulate microgravity) was necessary to generate facial edema.  We found that facial edema was present simply by lying supine.  This finding has important implication with individualized who are hospitalized and the HealthCare professional attempts to determine whether the patient is faking, hiding or in real pain. 

Present-day navigation displays (e.g., GPS displays often found in automobiles and aircrafts) require judgments about distance, and those judgments depend on perceived space. Human lives and safety depend on these judgments. Previous research shows that judgments may be impacted by one of several perceptual illusions (i.e., the tendency to overestimate or underestimate filled space), and displays may be designed to either eliminate or reduce the impact of these illusions. This research evaluated the effect of the Filled vs. Unfilled Space Illusion by asking participants to imagine being an airline pilot utilizing a navigation display and to judge the distance from their own aircraft on flight paths of varying lengths, and superimposed intervening points such that the amount of “filled space” varied systematically. In a previous study, a significant interaction between the length of the flight path (line length) and intervening points was found. In this follow up study (which also analyzed reaction times), an analysis of errors in judgments revealed the similar findings. These findings suggest that the Filled vs. Unfilled Space Illusion may be important when making distance judgments in a practical setting such as a navigation task.