Background: Cholinergic degeneration is strongly associated with cognitive decline in patients wi... more Background: Cholinergic degeneration is strongly associated with cognitive decline in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) but may also cause motor symptoms and olfactory dysfunction. Regional differences are striking and may reflect different PD related symptoms and disease progression patterns. Objective: To map and quantify the regional cerebral cholinergic alterations in non-demented PD patients. Methods: We included 15 non-demented PD patients in early-moderate disease stage and 15 age- and sex-matched healthy controls for [18F]FEOBV positron emission tomography imaging. We quantitated regional variations using VOI-based analyses which were supported by a vertex-wise cluster analysis. Correlations between imaging data and clinical and neuropsychological data were explored. Results: We found significantly decreased [18F]FEOBV uptake in global neocortex (38%, p = 0.0002). The most severe reductions were seen in occipital and posterior temporo-parietal regions (p < 0.0001). The vertex-wise cluster analysis corroborated these findings. All subcortical structures showed modest non-significant reductions. Motor symptoms (postural instability and gait difficulty) and cognition (executive function and composite z-score) correlated with regional [18F]FEOBV uptake (thalamus and cingulate cortex/insula/hippocampus, respectively), but the correlations were not statistically significant after multiple comparison correction. A strong correlation was found between interhemispheric [18F]FEOBV asymmetry, and motor symptom asymmetry of the extremities (r = 0.84, p = 0.0001). Conclusion: Cortical cholinergic degeneration is prominent in non-demented PD patients, but more subtle in subcortical structures. Regional differences suggest uneven involvement of cholinergic nuclei in the brain and may represent a window to follow disease progression. The correlation between asymmetric motor symptoms and neocortical [18F]FEOBV asymmetry indicates that unilateral cholinergic degeneration parallels ipsilateral dopaminergic degeneration.
Background: Cholinergic degeneration is strongly associated with cognitive decline in patients wi... more Background: Cholinergic degeneration is strongly associated with cognitive decline in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) but may also cause motor symptoms and olfactory dysfunction. Regional differences are striking and may reflect different PD related symptoms and disease progression patterns. Objective: To map and quantify the regional cerebral cholinergic alterations in non-demented PD patients. Methods: We included 15 non-demented PD patients in early-moderate disease stage and 15 age- and sex-matched healthy controls for [18F]FEOBV positron emission tomography imaging. We quantitated regional variations using VOI-based analyses which were supported by a vertex-wise cluster analysis. Correlations between imaging data and clinical and neuropsychological data were explored. Results: We found significantly decreased [18F]FEOBV uptake in global neocortex (38%, p = 0.0002). The most severe reductions were seen in occipital and posterior temporo-parietal regions (p < 0.0001). T...
This research examines the perceived fairness of two types of job interviews: robot-mediated and ... more This research examines the perceived fairness of two types of job interviews: robot-mediated and face-to-face interviews. The robot-mediated interview tests the concept of a fair proxy in the shape of a teleoperated social robot. In Study 1, a mini-public (n=53) revealed four factors that influence fairness perceptions of the robotmediated interview and showed how HR professionals’ perception of fair personnel selection is influenced by moral pragmatism despite clear moral awareness of discriminative biases in interviews. In Study 2, an experimental survey (n=242) conducted at an unemployment center showed that the respondents perceived the robotmediated interview as fairer than the face-to-face interview. Overall, the studies suggest that HR professionals and jobseekers exhibit diverging fairness perceptions and that the business case for the robot-mediated interview undermines its social case (i.e., reducing discrimination). The paper concludes by addressing key implications and avenues for future research.
&quot; Integrative Social Robotics &quot; (ISR) is a new approach or general method for g... more &quot; Integrative Social Robotics &quot; (ISR) is a new approach or general method for generating social robotics applications that are culturally sustainable (Seibt 2016). The paper briefly recapitulates the primary motivation for ISR. Currently social robotics is caught in a compounded version of the Collingridge dilemma—a triple gridlock of description, evaluation, and regulation tasks. In a second step we describe how ISR can overcome this gridlock, presenting five principles that should guide the research, design, and development (RDD) process for applications in social robotics. Characteristic of ISR is to intertwine a mixed method approach (i.e., conducting experimental, quantitative, qualitative, and phenomenological research for the same envisaged application) with conceptual and axiological analysis in philosophy; moreover, ISR is value-driven and abides by the &quot; non-replacement principle &quot; : social robots may only do what humans should but cannot do. In conclusion we suggest, with reference to a classification of different formats of pluridisciplinary research by Nersessian and Newstetter (2013), that ISR may establish social robotics as a new transdiscipline.
In this research note, we offer a comment on the “A Primer for Conducting Experiments in Human-ro... more In this research note, we offer a comment on the “A Primer for Conducting Experiments in Human-robot Interaction,” by G. Hoffman and X. Zhao, suggesting that due to the complexity of human social reality quantitative methods should be integrated into a mixed method approach.
The study of human-robot interaction (HRI) currently lacks (i) clear understanding of the envisag... more The study of human-robot interaction (HRI) currently lacks (i) clear understanding of the envisaged scope and format of the pluridisciplinary approach required by the domain, (ii) established set of methods and standards, and (iii) a joint terminological framework, or at least a set of analytical concepts and associated tests. This chapter aims to contribute to these three tasks. We begin with the observation that there is a need to define both the interdisciplinary scope of HRI research and its pluridisciplinary format, two tasks that are at the center of the new procedural paradigm of “Integrative Social Robotics”. These methodological reflections are further illustrated with a newly developed questionnaire, the AMPH. The AMPH contains a higher proportion of items tapping anthropomorphism towards artefacts than extant questionnaires. The analysis of AMPH (N = 339) pointed to a two-factor solution: anthropomorphism towards artefacts and anthropomorphism towards natural objects. These findings were further explored through triangulation with qualitative data. In the last section of the paper we discuss how the AMPH can be used to trace the distinction between humanizing and socializing (anthropomorphing and sociomorphing), and how qualitative and quantitative methods should be used in unison in HRI research to achieve more fine-grained analyses of relevant experiences. We argue, based on philosophical concept analysis and phenomenology, that the notion of anthropomorphization is far from clear and we must distinguish tendencies to humanize from tendencies to socialize, which comes in various subvarieties. In conclusion we consider whether our results suggest that HRI should aim for the high degree of pluridisciplinary integration associated with an “interdiscipline” or even a “transdiscipline.”
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, 2020
Social robotics and HRI are in need of a unified and differentiated theoretical framework where, ... more Social robotics and HRI are in need of a unified and differentiated theoretical framework where, relative to interaction context, robotic properties can be related to types of human experiences and interactive dispositions. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this task by providing new descriptive tools. In social robotics and HRI it is commonly assumed that social interactions with robots are due to ‘anthropomorphizing’. We challenge this assumption and argue, on conceptual and empirical grounds, that social interactions with robots are not always the result of anthropomorphizing, i.e., the projection of imaginary or fictional human social capacities, but of sociomorphing, i.e., the perception of actual non-human social capacities. Sociomorphing can take many forms which phenomenally manifest themselves in various types of experienced sociality. We very briefly sketch core elements of the descriptive framework OASIS (the Ontology of Asymmetric Social Interactions) in order to...
ABSTRACTBackgroundPatients with Parkinson's disease (PD) often develop dementia, but the unde... more ABSTRACTBackgroundPatients with Parkinson's disease (PD) often develop dementia, but the underlying substrate is incompletely understood. Generalized synaptic degeneration may contribute to dysfunction and cognitive decline in Lewy body dementias, but in vivo evidence is lacking.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to assess the density of synapses in non‐demented PD (nPD) subjects (N = 21), patients with PD‐dementia or Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) (N = 13), and age‐matched healthy controls (N = 15).MethodUsing in vivo PET imaging and the novel synaptic‐vesicle‐glycoprotein 2A (SV2A) radioligand [11C]UCB‐J, SUVR‐1 values were obtained for 12 pre‐defined regions. Volumes‐of‐interest were defined on MRI T1 scans. Voxel‐level between‐group comparisons of [11C]UCB‐J SUVR‐1 were performed. All subjects underwent neuropsychological assessment. Correlations between [11C]UCB‐ J PET and domain‐specific cognitive functioning were examined.ResultsnPD patients only demonstrated signi...
Background: Cholinergic degeneration is strongly associated with cognitive decline in patients wi... more Background: Cholinergic degeneration is strongly associated with cognitive decline in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) but may also cause motor symptoms and olfactory dysfunction. Regional differences are striking and may reflect different PD related symptoms and disease progression patterns. Objective: To map and quantify the regional cerebral cholinergic alterations in non-demented PD patients. Methods: We included 15 non-demented PD patients in early-moderate disease stage and 15 age- and sex-matched healthy controls for [18F]FEOBV positron emission tomography imaging. We quantitated regional variations using VOI-based analyses which were supported by a vertex-wise cluster analysis. Correlations between imaging data and clinical and neuropsychological data were explored. Results: We found significantly decreased [18F]FEOBV uptake in global neocortex (38%, p = 0.0002). The most severe reductions were seen in occipital and posterior temporo-parietal regions (p &lt; 0.0001). The vertex-wise cluster analysis corroborated these findings. All subcortical structures showed modest non-significant reductions. Motor symptoms (postural instability and gait difficulty) and cognition (executive function and composite z-score) correlated with regional [18F]FEOBV uptake (thalamus and cingulate cortex/insula/hippocampus, respectively), but the correlations were not statistically significant after multiple comparison correction. A strong correlation was found between interhemispheric [18F]FEOBV asymmetry, and motor symptom asymmetry of the extremities (r = 0.84, p = 0.0001). Conclusion: Cortical cholinergic degeneration is prominent in non-demented PD patients, but more subtle in subcortical structures. Regional differences suggest uneven involvement of cholinergic nuclei in the brain and may represent a window to follow disease progression. The correlation between asymmetric motor symptoms and neocortical [18F]FEOBV asymmetry indicates that unilateral cholinergic degeneration parallels ipsilateral dopaminergic degeneration.
Background: Cholinergic degeneration is strongly associated with cognitive decline in patients wi... more Background: Cholinergic degeneration is strongly associated with cognitive decline in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) but may also cause motor symptoms and olfactory dysfunction. Regional differences are striking and may reflect different PD related symptoms and disease progression patterns. Objective: To map and quantify the regional cerebral cholinergic alterations in non-demented PD patients. Methods: We included 15 non-demented PD patients in early-moderate disease stage and 15 age- and sex-matched healthy controls for [18F]FEOBV positron emission tomography imaging. We quantitated regional variations using VOI-based analyses which were supported by a vertex-wise cluster analysis. Correlations between imaging data and clinical and neuropsychological data were explored. Results: We found significantly decreased [18F]FEOBV uptake in global neocortex (38%, p = 0.0002). The most severe reductions were seen in occipital and posterior temporo-parietal regions (p < 0.0001). T...
This research examines the perceived fairness of two types of job interviews: robot-mediated and ... more This research examines the perceived fairness of two types of job interviews: robot-mediated and face-to-face interviews. The robot-mediated interview tests the concept of a fair proxy in the shape of a teleoperated social robot. In Study 1, a mini-public (n=53) revealed four factors that influence fairness perceptions of the robotmediated interview and showed how HR professionals’ perception of fair personnel selection is influenced by moral pragmatism despite clear moral awareness of discriminative biases in interviews. In Study 2, an experimental survey (n=242) conducted at an unemployment center showed that the respondents perceived the robotmediated interview as fairer than the face-to-face interview. Overall, the studies suggest that HR professionals and jobseekers exhibit diverging fairness perceptions and that the business case for the robot-mediated interview undermines its social case (i.e., reducing discrimination). The paper concludes by addressing key implications and avenues for future research.
&quot; Integrative Social Robotics &quot; (ISR) is a new approach or general method for g... more &quot; Integrative Social Robotics &quot; (ISR) is a new approach or general method for generating social robotics applications that are culturally sustainable (Seibt 2016). The paper briefly recapitulates the primary motivation for ISR. Currently social robotics is caught in a compounded version of the Collingridge dilemma—a triple gridlock of description, evaluation, and regulation tasks. In a second step we describe how ISR can overcome this gridlock, presenting five principles that should guide the research, design, and development (RDD) process for applications in social robotics. Characteristic of ISR is to intertwine a mixed method approach (i.e., conducting experimental, quantitative, qualitative, and phenomenological research for the same envisaged application) with conceptual and axiological analysis in philosophy; moreover, ISR is value-driven and abides by the &quot; non-replacement principle &quot; : social robots may only do what humans should but cannot do. In conclusion we suggest, with reference to a classification of different formats of pluridisciplinary research by Nersessian and Newstetter (2013), that ISR may establish social robotics as a new transdiscipline.
In this research note, we offer a comment on the “A Primer for Conducting Experiments in Human-ro... more In this research note, we offer a comment on the “A Primer for Conducting Experiments in Human-robot Interaction,” by G. Hoffman and X. Zhao, suggesting that due to the complexity of human social reality quantitative methods should be integrated into a mixed method approach.
The study of human-robot interaction (HRI) currently lacks (i) clear understanding of the envisag... more The study of human-robot interaction (HRI) currently lacks (i) clear understanding of the envisaged scope and format of the pluridisciplinary approach required by the domain, (ii) established set of methods and standards, and (iii) a joint terminological framework, or at least a set of analytical concepts and associated tests. This chapter aims to contribute to these three tasks. We begin with the observation that there is a need to define both the interdisciplinary scope of HRI research and its pluridisciplinary format, two tasks that are at the center of the new procedural paradigm of “Integrative Social Robotics”. These methodological reflections are further illustrated with a newly developed questionnaire, the AMPH. The AMPH contains a higher proportion of items tapping anthropomorphism towards artefacts than extant questionnaires. The analysis of AMPH (N = 339) pointed to a two-factor solution: anthropomorphism towards artefacts and anthropomorphism towards natural objects. These findings were further explored through triangulation with qualitative data. In the last section of the paper we discuss how the AMPH can be used to trace the distinction between humanizing and socializing (anthropomorphing and sociomorphing), and how qualitative and quantitative methods should be used in unison in HRI research to achieve more fine-grained analyses of relevant experiences. We argue, based on philosophical concept analysis and phenomenology, that the notion of anthropomorphization is far from clear and we must distinguish tendencies to humanize from tendencies to socialize, which comes in various subvarieties. In conclusion we consider whether our results suggest that HRI should aim for the high degree of pluridisciplinary integration associated with an “interdiscipline” or even a “transdiscipline.”
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, 2020
Social robotics and HRI are in need of a unified and differentiated theoretical framework where, ... more Social robotics and HRI are in need of a unified and differentiated theoretical framework where, relative to interaction context, robotic properties can be related to types of human experiences and interactive dispositions. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this task by providing new descriptive tools. In social robotics and HRI it is commonly assumed that social interactions with robots are due to ‘anthropomorphizing’. We challenge this assumption and argue, on conceptual and empirical grounds, that social interactions with robots are not always the result of anthropomorphizing, i.e., the projection of imaginary or fictional human social capacities, but of sociomorphing, i.e., the perception of actual non-human social capacities. Sociomorphing can take many forms which phenomenally manifest themselves in various types of experienced sociality. We very briefly sketch core elements of the descriptive framework OASIS (the Ontology of Asymmetric Social Interactions) in order to...
ABSTRACTBackgroundPatients with Parkinson's disease (PD) often develop dementia, but the unde... more ABSTRACTBackgroundPatients with Parkinson's disease (PD) often develop dementia, but the underlying substrate is incompletely understood. Generalized synaptic degeneration may contribute to dysfunction and cognitive decline in Lewy body dementias, but in vivo evidence is lacking.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to assess the density of synapses in non‐demented PD (nPD) subjects (N = 21), patients with PD‐dementia or Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) (N = 13), and age‐matched healthy controls (N = 15).MethodUsing in vivo PET imaging and the novel synaptic‐vesicle‐glycoprotein 2A (SV2A) radioligand [11C]UCB‐J, SUVR‐1 values were obtained for 12 pre‐defined regions. Volumes‐of‐interest were defined on MRI T1 scans. Voxel‐level between‐group comparisons of [11C]UCB‐J SUVR‐1 were performed. All subjects underwent neuropsychological assessment. Correlations between [11C]UCB‐ J PET and domain‐specific cognitive functioning were examined.ResultsnPD patients only demonstrated signi...
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