• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.513-519
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• 2014

Videoconferencing technology is increasingly used in classrooms to introduce children to people from other countries and cultures in order to provide a wider learning experience. However, with traditional screen-based video conferencing technology, research has shown that it is easy for students to miss non-verbal cues that play a key role in developing human relationships. To investigate how children interact differently when their interactions are mediated through screen-based video communication versus robot-mediated communication, we conducted a study with elementary students in Korea, comparing the use of both technologies to introduce classroom students with peer-aged individuals in America. Our findings show that the children displayed more positive emotions during certain tasks and exhibited more interest and intimacy to remote participants in the context of robot-mediated communication than with video-mediated communication.

• Design Convergence Study
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.59-70
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• 2016

Due to the newly emerging market for telepresence robots and the research in the area, designers and developers lack guidelines for specifying the physical characteristics of telepresence robots. On the basis of the previous literature, we attempted to make a distinction between two robot height approaches for telepresence robot designs: floor- versus desk-based robot designs. This research investigated the effects of these robot height approaches on consumer acceptance. We predicted that there would be difference between floor-based robots and desk-based robots regarding consumers' evaluation of and intent to purchase social robots. A study using two types of robots was conducted with sixty university students. The results showed that participants perceived desk-based robots as more useful than floor-based robots. In addition, the participants evaluated desk-based robots more positively than floor-based robots. Purchase intention and willingness to pay also showed similar results as evaluation. The implications for the design of telepresence robots in terms of increasing acceptance of robots are discussed in detail.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.49
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• pp.677-696
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• 2017

Cartoons and consequently animation are an effective way of visualizing futuristic scenarios. Here we look at how animation is becoming ubiquitous and an integral part of this future today: the cybernetic and mediated society that we are being transformed into. Animation therefore becomes a form of speech between humans and this networked reality, either as an interface or as representation that gives temporal form to objects. Animation or specifically animated films usually are associated with character based short and feature films, fiction or nonfiction. However animation is not constricted to traditional cinematic formats and language, the same way that design and communication have become treated as separate fields, however according to $Vil{\acute{e}}m$ Flusser they aren't. The same premise can be applied to animation in a networked culture: Animation has become an intrinsic to design processes and products - as in motion graphics, interface design and three-dimensional visualization. Video-games, virtual reality, map based apps and social networks constitute layers of an expanded universe that embodies our network based culture. They are products of design and media disciplines that are increasingly relying on animation as a universal language suited to multi-cultural interactions carried in digital ambients. In this sense animation becomes a discourse, the same way as Roland Barthes describes myth as a type of speech. With the objective of exploring the role of animation as a design tool, the proposed research intends to develop transmedia creative visual strategies using animation both as narrative and as an user interface.