Resonance as a Design Strategy for AI and Social Robots

James Derek Lomas; Albert Lin; Suzanne Dikker; Deborah Forster; Maria Luce Lupetti; Gijs Huisman; Julika Habekost; Caiseal Beardow; Pankaj Pandey; Nashra Ahmad; Krishna Miyapuram; Tim Mullen; Patrick Cooper; Willem van der Maden; Emily S Cross

doi:10.3389/fnbot.2022.850489

Resonance as a Design Strategy for AI and Social Robots

Front Neurorobot. 2022 Apr 27:16:850489. doi: 10.3389/fnbot.2022.850489. eCollection 2022.

Authors

James Derek Lomas¹, Albert Lin², Suzanne Dikker^{3

4}, Deborah Forster², Maria Luce Lupetti¹, Gijs Huisman¹, Julika Habekost⁵, Caiseal Beardow¹, Pankaj Pandey⁶, Nashra Ahmad⁶, Krishna Miyapuram⁶, Tim Mullen⁷, Patrick Cooper⁸, Willem van der Maden¹, Emily S Cross^{9

10}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Human Centered Design, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands.
² Center for Human Frontiers, Qualcomm Institute, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States.
³ Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, United States.
⁴ Department of Clinical Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
⁵ The Design Lab, California Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States.
⁶ Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, India.
⁷ Intheon Labs, San Diego, CA, United States.
⁸ Department of Physics, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
⁹ Social Robotics, Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
¹⁰ SOBA Lab, School of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Abstract

Resonance, a powerful and pervasive phenomenon, appears to play a major role in human interactions. This article investigates the relationship between the physical mechanism of resonance and the human experience of resonance, and considers possibilities for enhancing the experience of resonance within human-robot interactions. We first introduce resonance as a widespread cultural and scientific metaphor. Then, we review the nature of "sympathetic resonance" as a physical mechanism. Following this introduction, the remainder of the article is organized in two parts. In part one, we review the role of resonance (including synchronization and rhythmic entrainment) in human cognition and social interactions. Then, in part two, we review resonance-related phenomena in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). These two reviews serve as ground for the introduction of a design strategy and combinatorial design space for shaping resonant interactions with robots and AI. We conclude by posing hypotheses and research questions for future empirical studies and discuss a range of ethical and aesthetic issues associated with resonance in human-robot interactions.

Keywords: AI for wellbeing; design space; entrainment; human-media interaction; metaphor; resonance; social robotics; synchronization.