Yoshikawa Yuichiro, Kumazaki Hirokazu, Matsumoto Yoshio, Miyao Masutomo, Kikuchi Mitsuru, Ishiguro Hiroshi
Department of Systems Innovation, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
ERATO ISHIGURO Human-Robot Symbiotic Interaction Project, JST, Osaka, Japan.
Front Psychiatry. 2019 Jun 14;10:370. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00370. eCollection 2019.
Establishing a treatment method for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) not only to increase their frequency or duration of eye contact but also to maintain it after ceasing the intervention, and furthermore generalize it across communication partners, is a formidable challenge. Android robots, which are a type of humanoid robot with appearances quite similar to that of humans, are expected to adapt to the role of training partners of face-to-face communication for individuals with ASD and to create easier experiences transferrable to humans. To evaluate this possibility, four male adolescents with ASD and six without ASD were asked to participate a pilot experiment in which there were consecutive sessions of semistructured conversation where they alternately faced either a human female or a female-type android robot interlocutor five times in total. Although it is limited by the small sample size, the preliminary results of analysis of their fixation pattern during the conversations indicated positive signs; the subjects tended to look more at the face of the android robot than that of the human interlocutor regardless of whether they had ASD. However, the individuals with ASD looked more at the area around the eyes of the android robot than at the human, and also looked less at that of the human than the individuals without ASD did. An increasing tendency of looking at the area around the human eyes, which could be a positive sign of the transferability of the experiences with an android robot to a human interlocutor, was only weakly observed as the sessions progressed.
为自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者建立一种治疗方法，不仅要增加他们眼神交流的频率或持续时间，还要在干预停止后保持这种状态，并且进一步将其推广到不同的交流伙伴身上，这是一项艰巨的挑战。人形机器人外观与人类非常相似，有望成为ASD患者面对面交流训练伙伴的角色，并创造更容易转移到人类身上的体验。为了评估这种可能性，招募了四名患有ASD的男性青少年和六名没有ASD的青少年参与一项试点实验，实验中进行了连续的半结构化对话环节，他们总共交替面对一名人类女性或一名女性型人形机器人对话者五次。尽管样本量较小存在局限性，但对话期间对他们注视模式分析的初步结果显示出积极迹象；无论是否患有ASD，受试者看向人形机器人面部的次数往往多于人类对话者。然而，患有ASD的个体看向人形机器人眼睛周围区域的次数多于人类，并且看向人类的次数也少于没有ASD的个体。随着对话环节的推进，仅微弱地观察到看向人类眼睛周围区域的趋势有所增加，这可能是与人形机器人交流的体验可转移到人类对话者身上的一个积极迹象。
